One hundred and thirty-four Singapore bloggers have staged a blackout of their websites today in protest of a new licensing law for online news that they decry as a move to stifle independent media.

According to a report on AFP , the protest today involves putting up a blank black screen over their homepages with the words ‘#FreeMyInternet’, and details of a gathering on Saturday at the Hong Lim Park Speakers’ Corner in the heart of the city.

singapore blog yawning bread blackout "This is not just a movement by socio-political blogs. The participating websites are from all genres - from lifestyle and food, to technology.

"The diversity reflects an awareness that the new regulations can affect anyone because it has been framed so widely," AFP reported The Online Citizen’ s (TOC) Choo Zheng Xi as saying.

Choo is reported to be the spokesperson for the blogger’s protest.

On TOC ’s page, the blackout - which is to last for 24 hours starting this morning - further read, “This is what it feels like if you are not able to read or know”.

The protest comes after the Media Development Authority (MDA) unveiled a new law requiring news websites - with at least 50,000 unique visitors in two months, and which report an average of at least one Singapore-related news article a week, also over two months - to be licensed .

So far, only larger websites have been presently affected and are required to comply with the law immediately, but the bloggers said that the “broad power of the new rules” were indicative of a clampdown and feared that they would eventually be targetted as well.

Meanwhile, although the move last week immediately drew criticism from advocates of free press, the Malaysian government has expressed interest in emulating the island state, according to Communications and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek on Monday.