Dr Chua Soi Lek has resigned as Health Minister for 4 days now, and a new acting Health Minister (Ong Ka Ting) has been announced for a couple of days… but our parliament website has yet to make necessary changes…
It’s the Official Website of the Parliament of Malaysia; not a website running by cats and dogs… how could they not keep this kind of information up to date?
2 seperate police reports are lodged against Malaysian bloggers Jeff Ooi and Raja Petra.
3 groups lodge reports against blogger (NST)
Three police reports were lodged against blogger Jeff Ooi for allegedly defaming the country, government and police force.
The reports were lodged by the Malaysian Islamic Consumers Association, Malaysian Indian Muslim Congress and Pertubuhan Seni Silat Ikatan Kalam Malaysia against a statement issued by Ooi to an Al Jazeera reporter. The statement was allegedly broadcast on YouTube following an illegal gathering on Nov 10 organised by a coalition of opposition parties and non-governmental organisations calling itself Bersih.
The police reports were lodged at the Sentul police headquarters yesterday about 4.30pm.
The complainants want Ooi to be investigated, alleging that the interview given to Al Jazeera not only tarnished the image of the country but was also seditious and caused racial tension.
Ooi is also alleged to have given inaccurate information to Al Jazeera in stating that the police used unnecessary force in dispersing the demonstrators.
New radio station in town…
Radio24, the first all-news radio station in the country, is expected to play a role in fulfilling the needs of the people to receive not only information, but valid information.
Information Minister Zainuddin Maidin said the 24-hour radio station, run by Bernama, began transmission today and would play an important role in providing actual and current news and information to the public “who crave for information”.
For the first phase, Radio24 will be available only in the Klang Valley, which is home to four million people, before the service is expanded nationwide in the second phase. [Bernama]
I have a feeling that the radio station will be yet another propaganda machine by the BN government. Besides, ‘valid information’ is a joke… it simply means information that the government wants the people to know.
Berita Harian is reporting about Namewee having another song that is insulting Malays. The article titled ‘Lagi lagu Meng Chee hina Melayu’ is referring to Namewee’s earlier song “Kawanku” for having insulting sentiment.
Out of the ~ 4 minute video, this is probably the only controversial excerpt from the song…
Cakap lagi la Cina balik China, kalau semua balik sini bukan Malaysia, saya takut mana kamu pergi cari kerja.. tapi biasalah orang Melayu pun tak suka kerja… semua masuk hutan hidung macam sakai.
Think whatever you like about the phrase, I don’t want to talk about it.
What irritates me is how Berita Harian is trying to raise racial tension among Malaysians. They are doing their best to raise anger from Malays against a fellow Malaysian, a Chinese unfortunately.
As mentioned in my earlier post about Namewee’s saga… I strongly felt that the local press is doing more damage to racial harmony than Namewee himself by publishing irresponsible news articles.
The editors of Berita Harian should be mature enough to know that the article would raise uneasiness to the society, and they still chose to do so. Aren’t these people supposed to be charged under seditious act instead?
Don’t even try to tell me that it’s press freedom or that it’s their responsibility to publish the facts. Namewee’s Negarakuku video is based on facts as well, but it is improper because some facts are not meant to be published.
Facts can be seditious as well… if Namewee is to be charged with seditious act, the Berita Harian editors shouldn’t receive any punishment less than Namewee. As far as I am concerned, Berita Harian is doing much more damage then Namewee’s videos did.
A BM excerpt from Harian Metro Online regarding the summoning of Marina Lee, wife of Raja Petra (webmaster of Malaysia-today.net)…
Isteri penulis artikel dalam Malaysian Today yang menghina Yang Dipertua dan agama Islam, diambil keterangan oleh polis untuk membantu siasatan, hari ini.
Since when did Raja Petra, the webmaster of Malaysia Today, has been found guilty of insulting the king and Islam? Amazing how papers are reporting news these days.
Malaysia-today.net is blocked by Malaysia government???
After a controversial police report by Mat Taib against Raja Petra Kamarudin (RPK), the webmaster of Malaysia Today (MT) on July 23, it seems like the government has up their ante in the battle against MT by blocking the accessibility of the website from Malaysian IPs.
I couldn’t access the website earlier on, and I thought that the website might be overloaded server or something… but I just realized that MT might be blocked by Malaysia ISP instead (Hat tip to Shadowfox and Kai).
I tried accessing MT from an anonymizer, and the site is working just fine. You can access MT using proxies – find one from this link.
The censoring is not 100% proven yet, as some people are not able to access MT with proxy as well [Hafiz]… but it is likely that the ban is on.
I am not a regular reader of MT so I guess I won’t be much affected, but I will be really disappointed if the government decided to impose internet censorship against their critics. It will be another blow to MSC’s Bill of Guarantees for ensuring no Internet censorship, and more importantly… it shows that Malaysia government is not ready to handle criticism.
Besides, it is easy to find another route to access the website; does government really think they can just shut down a website like that? This kind of cheap act will likely to create more retaliation against them instead… not the smartest move.
Update – MT is back online on 11pm… I guess I was a bit paranoia. I am not sure what was happening; I am guessing that RPK was migrating MT to a new server, and the DNS was resolved in a different pace with various ISP.
My apology regardless.
Update July 29 – MT’s explanation on the downtime
From Malaysiakini…
Umno has filed a police report against political website Malaysia Today for allegedly publishing disparaging remarks against the King and Islam.
From Thestar…
Umno has lodged a police report against MalaysiaToday for carrying a series of comments and remarks that it deemed as insulting the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, degrading Islam and as inciting hatred and violence in Malaysia’s multi-racial society.
Party information chief Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib lodged the report at 12.57pm at Tun H.S. Lee police station here Monday. He said the comments and remarks, consisting of criminal elements and inciting religious and racial sentiments which could affect the country’s security, were carried by the blog on July 11.
The report was lodged under Section 121 (B) and Section 123 of the Penal Code, Section 4 of the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 263 and Section 266 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
