As Sedition Act ascribes sedition to that which tends to incite hatred, contempt, disaffection against the government or raise discontent or disaffection among the subjects, literally, it could be narrowly extended to cover anything published that is critical of the government or Umno or any component party of Barisan Nasional or its youth wing or politician.

This ought not to be the approach for otherwise it would make nonsense of the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech and expression, and contradict all pretensions on the ruling party's part to democratic credentials.

Malaysiakini 's over-arching commitment is to speak for Malaysia today. And in Malaysia today, community standards and tolerance for controversial speech and contents critical of things wrong about the country or government policies have arisen. This is more so for the sub-community that accesses malaysiakini .

The acid test of sedition is not whether Umno Youth is offended by contents published but whether the contents, no matter how critical or controversial, is consistent with the growing culture for reasoned public debate and discourse necessary to open up the minds of, and imbue tolerance among the Malaysian public on discussion of important issues of the day.

The content may be anti-government or -Umno, or anti-opposition, but it is okay by my books if it is part of the process of building up public consciousness on the rakyat 's rights and tolerance of different viewpoints and pros and cons of public issues, that is pro-Malaysian and Malaysia.

National interest as always overrides the sectional interest of any political party or office bearer whether or not with subterranean motives to "catapult themselves politically by shamefully highlighting irrelevant issues for private and personal gain" (Dr Jacob George's Focus on more pressing wrongs than harmless letter ).

Umno Youth information chief Azimi Daim told a press conference that Petrof''s letter, by making false accusations as well as questioning the Malay special rights, could instill hatred towards the government in non-Malay Malaysians ( Umno Youth lodges report against Malaysiakini ).

Could? Let us not talk of possibilities but reality. Speaking as a non-Malay Malaysian, Petrof''s letter did not instill in me any hatred towards the government — in fact I found it entertaining reading. As Badang said ( On warpath against defenceless M'sians again

), if previous threats to burn down the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall or bathe their keris in the blood of minorities have been dismissed as wild ranting and not "instilled hatred towards the government" to warrant invoking the Sedition Act, I can't see how Petrof's letter would deserve the honour.

Azimi said Malay special rights have been provided for under Article 153 of the Federal Constitution and should not be questioned. But who is questioning? It is not seditious to discourse on how these policies were implemented and the negative repercussions of racial polarisation of indiscriminate implementation, a subject which was brought up publicly by none other than the Umno president and Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself.

When the Umno president commits himself to MSC and signed the Guarantee of Bill of Rights, it is a commitment not to suppress information flow and freedom of speech of cyberspace. There should not be a caveat that speech critical of the government should be curtailed. Anyone who reads Internet content joins the community that waives the right to be offended, and adopts the discerning attitude to sift between what is truth and what is rubbish.

Against this backdrop, it is anachronistic to use Sedition Act to reduce online content of malaysiakini to that fit only for children than a discerning cyber surfing adult community.

The government cannot without contradiction seek to promote IT literacy and Internet use without at the same time tolerating the free exchange of ideas that it entails. One cannot promote the Internet and yet curb free exchange of ideas by unproven allegation of sedition. (It is not as if a riot ensued after Petrof''s letter!).

Indeed to allege sedition on malaysiakini 's part is to unwittingly enhance its domestic and international profile, readership and subscription further.

Summarising, malaysiakini or 'Malaysia today' is a battleground of two broad groups — one for a more open and tolerant society and the other a close and obscurantist one. Malaysiakini is at the frontier in defence of the first. Surely the ruling party must realise even from the standpoint of its own political survival and interest that if the second group grows in strength further, the ruling party will be booted out by political parties that they support.

Umno Youth should be able to distinguish, in the wider context, friends from foes rather than drawing from hackneyed and worn out intimidating tricks of yesteryears to protect political capital that are ineffective today. Indeed Umno itself needs re-invention to be relevant in longer run.

It is therefore myopic when election is around the corner to attack malaysiakini that may really incite disaffection of civil society groups, non-governmental organisations both local and international that have so far served as bulwark against the very political and ideological extremism threatening the status quo — to which Umno's interest is identified.