Opposition publication Harakah does not expect to face any problem when it resumes printing on Monday, PAS secretary-general Mustafa Ali says.

NONE The Home Ministry yesterday announced the renewal of bi-weekly's permit, on condition that it prints 'For PAS members only' on its front page and that it is only sold at the party headquarters and operations centres ( markas ).

Mustafa ( left ) said PAS did not expect the apparent narrowing down of distribution outlets to jeopardise the circulation of Harakah , since the ministry did not specify the term markas.

"As far as we are concerned, a markas can be next to a mosque, or a member's house... if the Home Ministry feels that it has a problem with this, we are always open to discuss the matter," he said.

Mustafa said it would be difficult to make sure that every copy of Harakah was sold to party members only, as the distributors assumed that the buyers would be aware of this condition.

Circulation expected to remain around 100,000

"It clearly states on the front page, even now, that Harakah is for members only, so if someone buys, then the distributors will assume that they are members.

"Of course, we constantly remind our distributors of the conditions," he said, adding that the party was scheduled to meet the Harakah distributors this afternoon.

Mustafa said PAS expects the circulation to remain around 100,000 copies, but the demand would be assessed before any decision was made to increase or reduce the print order.

NONE The party was thankful to the Home Ministry for renewing its printing permit, and urged that the same be done for the other publications, including Keadilan and The Rocket , which are still awaiting their permits.

On Pakatan's planned meeting with the Home Ministry on the permits for Keadilan and The Rocket , Mustafa said PAS would join its coalition partners if asked.

As for the five sen a litre hike in fuel prices, he said there was no point in holding demonstrations as this would not bring much impact.

What was more important was for the government to keep tabs on businesses to prevent arbitrary increases in the prices of goods that did not commensurate with the fuel hike.

Mustafa added that it was only fair that the government also looked into rationalising subsidies given to independent power producers, who were not affected by the subsidy rationalisation plan.

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