I am very heartened to hear your editor's (Steven Gan) reiteration of malaysiakini 's guiding principles - that all Malaysians should be encouraged to express themselves without fear of reprisals on issues of great importance to us, our country and our children, that we may not be given the chance to do so elsewhere ('Write without fear', July 11).

Information Ministry parliamentary secretary Zainuddin Maidin (Zam)'s praise of the university student, Husnul Hadi Halim, for his "zeal and boldness" in exposing the "lies" by malaysiakini over a "seditious" statement allegedly made by him is untenable because malaysiakini did not spread lies.

It is not as if malaysiakini 's writers have written false and untrue news or malaysiakini had itself committed false pretensions by knowingly publishing letters from a bogus e-mail.

Consistent with the guiding principles above, your policy of not requiring your letter writers to provide their personal details to you, or anyone else, is the only sensible option - subject, of course, to your ensuring that their contents are fair comment (not personal attacks), not defamatory or inciting racial or religious outrage and generally not seditious in the broad understanding of that word.

Otherwise, you will still be held responsible for such publication.

Any reader of Internet postings should realise by now that it is a caveat emptor (buyer's beware) situation by which he has to evaluate the information critically to separate grain from chaff and not blame anyone else for disinformation.

I would agree with your decision that when it comes to whatever letters purportedly sent in by an identifiable organisation or its representatives, it is prudent to contact the people concerned to verify that fact.

I would add that whatever letters purportedly claiming to represent certain facts about identifiable organisations or persons, you should also contact such organisations and persons for response prior to publication, as you did in Tan Boon Kuang's ('Where's the coverage on Chua?', July 11).

The fact that these organisations or persons are identifiable means that they can be reached for purposes of giving them a chance to reply in the interest of fair play and fair journalism and to maximise probity by way of providing you an opportunity to evaluate whether it is all right in the first place to publish such a letter alleging facts - as distinct from expressing a personal opinion.

Sometime back in your request for accreditation passes, Zam did mention that you should not reflect consistently an anti-establishment stance under the pretension of being independent.

I cannot understand his present anti- malaysiakini stance as evinced by his seizing an opportunity by quickly concluding that you had spread 'lies', when in fact you had been duped by what was essentially a case of Internet abuse because I see in your published contents both pro and anti-government as well as opposition elements.

If there happens to be a preponderance of more anti-establishment views published than pro- government or anti-opposition, it is not because your editorial policy is biased against the establishment per se.

It may be attributable to the fact that admirers of the government have ample opportunities and forums in mainstream publications to express their views whereas those critical of the government tend to congregate around and turn to malaysiakini for an avenue to express their dissent and frustrations!

But isn't this what democracy is all about? Would Zam prefer them to congregate and demonstrate around Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman or Jalan Masjid India instead?

Whether the preponderance of your contents is anti- or pro-establishment is not the crucial issue. What is more important is whether malaysiakini is pro-Malaysia.

I contend that malaysiakini so far promotes national interest. It not only scours the hidden official shenanigans that corrodes the moral fabric of society but in ferreting these out and encouraging discourse, it provides the necessary feedback to those in power to keep in touch with the pulse of the ordinary people, and their grouses - and to officialdom to take remedial measures to rectify their mistakes.

Husnul Hadi Halim of course should not be blamed for lodging a police report, and malaysiakini 's apology was appropriate.

What is insidious about the whole episode that needs to be pre-empted is that someone wishing you ill can deliberately by himself or through another abettor send a bogus e-mail under his own or the abettor's name and then later deny that it had anything to do with him.

The motive may be just to provide an excuse for him to lodge a police report and an excuse for the police to conduct an investigation into your infrastructure with the view of determining the electronic trail of your content providers and letter contributors through assistance of our Internet Service Providers.