In his article, [#1] Editor NST dedah krisis media arus perdana [/#] (22 Mac), malaysiakini news editor Fathi Aris Omar criticises a journalist from the New Straits Times (sic) for not mentioning the closure of alternative newspapers, Detik , Eksklusif and Al-Wasilah in his article based upon the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) 'Attacks on the Press in 2000' report.

He then goes on to attack the National Union of Journalists, Malaysia (NUJ), for not protesting the closure of the three alternative papers:

"NUJ misalnya, gagal membantah penutupan atau sekatan terhadap penerbitan alternatif pada tahun 2000," kata laporan itu lagi.

While I have no right to speak on behalf of the NUJ executive council, as an ordinary member of the NUJ who was a former branch secretary of NUJ-Star and a former NUJ election scrutineer, I know for a fact that none of these alternative papers closed down had NUJ branches.

Secondly and most importantly, would the managements of those alternative papers have allowed their staff to set up an NUJ branch in their company - i.e. to unionise?

Despite all its championing of press freedom, 'human rights', 'civil society', 'democracy', 'free speech', 'protection of journalists' and so on, will malaysiakini allow its editorial staff the human right to join NUJ or establish an NUJ-Malaysiakini branch?

Or will it be like a print newspaper in Thailand which also champions such issues and whose editor is closely associated to your sponsor, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa), but does not allow its journalists to become union members on threat of dismissal?

So much for protection of journalists and 'human rights' when journalists don't have the human right to join a union.

I must also remind you that Jacqueline Ann Surin - who has criticised NUJ in various media including malaysiakini - was thoroughly thrashed by the incumbent Hong Boon How in a contest for the post of general secretary in last year's executive council elections.

So if the majority of NUJ members aren't exactly excited and worked up over the things malaysiakini and Surin find important, please show some respect to the majority of members who dealt a thumping defeat to Surin who have been criticising NUJ in malaysiakini .

What right does malaysiakini have to criticise NUJ - a body comprising Malaysian journalists, photographers and graphic artists, whose labour has produced the wealth which makes the owners of our respective newspapers rich?

Also, while they are non-unionised, journalists and web page designers at malaysiakini will one day make (chief executive officer) Premesh Chandran and (editor) Steven Gan rich off the surplus value of their labour.

From its inception, malaysiakini was funded (partially of course, lest I forget) by Seapa which in turn has links to George Soros' [#2] Open Society Institute [/#] which pays for a CPJ adviser to be based with them.

The national chapters of the Open Society Institute openly declare its intention to interfere in respective national politics, fund and work with NGOs in their respective countries, besides engaging in philanthropic projects to fund education, health, culture and welfare in their respective countries which make them look good.

There is a global spider web linking NGOs, various media associations, committees, institutes and so on worldwide to Soros' Open Society Institute - which has an agenda to promote Soros' notion of an 'Open Society', a version of neo-liberalism, and because of the neo-liberal dictates of the World Trade Organisation, which the Malaysian government agreed to, thousands of bank workers are being retrenched following the bank mergers to compete with foreign banks beginning 2003.

So the capitalist owners of malaysiakini and all these imperialist-backed and -funded NGOs have no right to attack NUJ Malaysia - a Malaysian white-collar workers' organisation.

Without NUJ, will Soros, Seapa, CPJ, the Coalition of Media Activists or malaysiakini fight to maintain and improve Malaysian journalists, photographers and graphic artists' livelihoods and working conditions, especially now when a global capitalist economic crisis looms large?

Editor's note : Please note that malaysiakini news editor Fathi Aris Omar explicitly stated in the said article that it is not his intention to criticise NUJ or its leadership, but rather the 'tame journalism' that is practised by the mainstream media journalists. It was the CPJ report that criticised NUJ and Fathi was merely quoting from it.

There is no restriction on malaysiakini journalists to form a union or join NUJ, as per their right.