Religious deviants have had their bad run in the news the past two weeks. It's the digital forensic investigators' turn now.

Peeling through repositories of meta-data, they're hot on the digital trail, gathering ‘evidence' to charge Malaysiakini for breaching the Communications and Multimedia Act.

The continual harassment of Malaysiakini journalists is indeed troubling. You're guilty until proven innocent. And that's for reporting truthfully.

The Communications and Multimedia Commission's (MCMC) action reinforces the public perception that the six-month-old government, considerably weakened in the last election, continues to profess a chronic distaste for critical reportage of public affairs by online news media, and a pathological suspicion of media reformists, civil society groups, whistle-blowers, and progressives.

Worthy journalists, however, know that threats and harassment will not deter them from writing what they believe to be true, fair and accurate.

Digging into deeper hole

That has been the foundation of online news media such as Malaysiakini, Malaysia Today and Malaysian Insider.

Together, they're reliable alternative sources of information for Malaysians at home and abroad.

The complex process of digital forensic investigation will see the MCMC occupying notable space in the news for some time. I see a teachable lesson from this sorry sight.

That is: when you find yourself in a hole because of what you said or did in public, you'd only dig yourself deeper if you try to get out of the hole by applying the same ‘logic' that got you in the hole in the first place.

Especially when stills, audio and video of your actions are easily shared on the net.

Beginning from the police inaction at the cow-head protests and the home minister's meeting with the stompers when he exonerated their anti-Hindu vitriol, we've seen the train of events sliding deeper into the realm of absurdities.

The MCMC's standing order to Malaysiakini to pull the two video clips - because one shows the home minister's gaffe and the other, the idiocy of religious bigotry - reinforces how far the country has regressed with each change of leadership in the ruling coalition with shenanigan masters occupying critical ministerial portfolios.

Blind to new generation

There's abundant research evidence to show that when governments directly censor the media and deny journalists their freedom to report and challenge, the outcome is usually corrupt governance.

Granted that a robust and critical media does not by itself necessarily guarantee a clean and honest government, as the American experience shows, denying the people's right to a free and open media in a wired society inevitably creates mass discontent, which consequently manifests itself in the ballot box - such as happened in last year's general election.

Yet, we have a government that doesn't see the emerging generation of young educated voters who are increasingly techno-savvy bloggers and media literate.

It would be comical if it wasn't actually happening -- MCMC officers donning face-masks fiddling with the cables and hard-disks, taking photos of its serial numbers, poring over computer screens to unravel the digital footprints.

To be fair, the officers are just doing their job - that is, following orders to look for ‘evidence' to prove Malaysiakini's hypothetical guilt.

Digital forensic investigation, a relatively new area in Malaysia with few expert digital forensic scientists, is usually applied to catching cyber criminals, financial fraudsters and hackers of information security domain to name a few.

MCMC losing credibility

Common sense tells me that Malaysiakini's video coverage of the cow-head protests and the minister's gaffe is far from being a criminal act.

The irony is the more MCMC investigates, the less credible will be its agency, the higher the videos' rating in YouTube. Sweeter is the forbidden fruit.

The more the government cracks down on Malaysiakini for its truthful reporting, the stronger will be Malaysiakini's support base, as evident in the expressed support from readers at home and abroad - with a few even offering to set up a defence fund if the fiasco goes to court.

What we have not yet seen are lawyers specialising in digital forensic cases offering their expertise to the news portal pro bono.

What's troubling - but unsurprising- is we don't see the mainstream media coming out to support Malaysiakini's public obligation to report the "news and views that matter".

Malaysian journalism will be much lesser for the mainstream media's choice to just watch the strangulation of whatever's left of our democratic media on the sideline.

World standing slides

Meanwhile, the country's world standing as in 2007/8 on all democracy-related counts remains below par - not that the government cares what the ‘west' thinks regardless that these indices do influence how international businesses see the country's investment and growth prospects .

Like my fellow column writers, I believe Malaysiakini will not yield to the latest governmental incursion.

Sim Kwang Yang articulated it well in his column last week. Nevertheless, given the government's record for harassing journalists and silencing the collective public voice that threatens the status quo, we can expect difficult times ahead for perhaps the underpaid and overworked journalists.

The challenge now is to start more online news portal sites to provide Malaysians with more diverse views and news, the type of journalism that challenges, confronts, scrutinises, informs and educates.

Thus, the imperative is for bloggers, ‘citizen journalists' and pundits - from the right, center and left of the political spectrum - to publish and compete in the marketplace of news and opinions.

Readers will decide who to follow and believe. If the principles of holding our ministers and religious bigots accountable are to mean anything, then we must continue to barrack for the journalists' privilege to write the stories they know to be true and fair.

Online news media sites - the only viable alternative to Malaysian journalism today - must surely be protected from further political harassment.