It was Oct 27, 1987; 106 individuals had been arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA), following the clampdown after Operasi Lalang. Three newspapers - The Star , Sin Chew Jit Poh and a weekly Watan - have had their operating licences revoked.

For The Star , the suspension from printing was for 149 days, but the impact had been far more than what most anticipated.

“Ops Lalang was the best thing that could have happened to The Star , at that point in time,” one of the journalists from The Star during that era told KiniBiz .

When the suspension on The Star was lifted, circulation numbers escalated and the talk was that when newspaper vendors offered buyers the New Straits Times , they declined.

“People wanted The Star or nothing else... they supported The Star , advertised, subscribed and basically shown defiance by supporting The Star .

“You must understand at that point in time, Umno was very powerful, people were feeling suppressed. This is how they reacted - by supporting The Star which was seen as standing up to Umno, as ‘The People’s Paper’, as it billed itself,” the former journalist of The Star added.

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