From published facts of your predicament, a seemingly innocuous letter

from Petrof appears to have set off a muddled chain of events.

First, Umno Youth's lodgment of a police report which according to M Bakri Musa's open letter

is infantilism manifest to run off and tattle to police authority to salve life's inevitable wounds of being criticised as if it could make up for and substitute the want of reasoned and erudite rebuttal.

Next, the brouhaha of a blithering police raid and sequestration of servers and computer CPUs"for forensic examination" which was immediately decried

by some as selective enforcement since they too have lodged police reports o­n others that have not merited such an efficient response.

Now to top it all, a misconceived eviction

notice from PC Suria, the sole distributor of national computers produced by government-backed Perbadanan Komputer Nasional Bhd (Nascom), o­n grounds of malaysiakini's being involved in "activities which contravene the laws of the country" when no charge has been brought as yet, let alone proven in respect of the seditious nature of the preceding first event. This misplaced eviction notice may well land the landlord the liability for all rental for the unexpired term to finance malaysiakini's relocation!

That this attack o­n malaysiakini has created an uproar from a wide spectrum of civil groups is testimony of the privilege the o­nline bulletin has earned for disseminating the unvarnished truth and upholding the candle of civil debate so necessary for the evolution of the culture of rights recognition struggling to be born here.

That such an attack will be perceived worldwide as a flagrant renege of the government's avowed commitment to MSC Bill of Guarantees and "shooting down" of its own much touted MSC project is yet another consequence uncontemplated by those responsible to blow up Petrof's letter in the first place.

In a word, the initiatives to react against malaysiakini have so far proven bungled in relation to the consequences ensuing.

But the tremors of tentative misgivings were soon felt as shown by the authorities' returning

some of the computers seized quite promptly, and Umno Youth's backtracking to say that it was Petrof, and not malaysiakini to whom their ire was directed, and that it would register its preparedness to have a dialogue with malaysiakini journalists o­n the broader issues of press freedom. This backpedaling was soon however reversed by an assertive posting at its website exhorting the authorities to teach malaysiakini a lesson!

It is interesting to muse o­n the apparent vacillations of positions. Someone regrets. Another wants to hold steadfast, not admitting mistakes.

Noting that the hullabaloo was first stirred when the Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad (and Umno Youth chief) was out of the country visiting Lebanon and Egypt and Davos, Switzerland lecturing the world o­n America's ineptitude in handling global terrorism, o­ne naturally wonders if these various initiatives against Malaysia's o­nly free press has the numero uno's prior blessings or is someone else's unilateral dream of personal political aggrandisement that will earn the PM's rebuke for being unmindful of the political flak and their negative implications o­n Malaysia's image in the context of our aspiration to embrace globalisation!

One of the most hilarious if somewhat over-imaginative remarks that I have ever heard o­n these recent developments was someone's speculation that the contents of Petrof's letter were actually deliberately orchestrated by the top honcho of the country to test and measure the competence of those around o­n how they would handle or blow up the situation.

All eyes and ears then will be turned to the PM's return and his first remarks of these incidents when invited by reporters to comment. From there, we will see where the chips will eventually fall.