Asia-Pacific coalition: Don't silence Malaysiakini
A coalition comprising 49 Asia-Pacific non-governmental organisations and individuals sent a protest letter to the Home Ministry and police headquarters today, condemning last week's raid on malaysiakini as an unwarranted action that severely jeopardises press freedom.
Copies of the letter were forwarded to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) and the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
"We fully support (
malaysiakini's
efforts to provide a platform for) freedom of opinion and expression and therefore, respectfully request that Malaysian authorities immediately cease all actions and pressure that violate this communications right," said the coalition.
"We regret that Malaysia's Sedition Act has been applied to justify this police raid and to arbitrarily and unjustifiably censor alternative views."
The police raid was based on a report lodged by Umno Youth against the Internet daily for publishing an allegedly seditious letter, which the movement claimed could cause racial tension.
Fifteen central processing units (CPUs) and four servers were seized in the raid. All the CPUs have since been returned, but the servers remain in police hands.
Deeply disappointed
The coalition also pointed out that the raid occurred days after the Asia Regional Conference for the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) in Tokyo, Japan, where a main area of discussion was to move towards free and balanced communication.
"As the Malaysian government was a party to the meeting and had dispatched official delegates to engage in the conference discussions, it is deeply disappointing that it immediately deviated from the vision and spirit of the information society with its attempt to silence malaysiakini ," it said.
"The vision of civil society is to evolve the global community into a truly communicative, just and peaceful one, grounded on respect for diversity and plurality. WSIS would be meaningless if we cannot agree to uphold communication rights - the fundamental human rights to communicate, to access and disseminate information as the touchstone of our information society."
The coalition reiterated that the securing and promotion of the freedom of expression should be guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adding that acts to frustrate press freedom further underscore the necessity of protecting communications rights.
Unnecessary action
The coalition also called on the Malaysian government to refrain from exercising censorship in all forms as a form of respect for fundamental human rights.
"It is absolutely unnecessary for the Malaysian authorities to apply the Sedition Act against malaysiakini . Sensitive issues should be resolved through constructive and rational dialogue and debate rather than censorship in any form," the coalition said.
It urged the police to return all seized items and to stop questioning the editorial staff to coerce them to reveal the identity of the writer of the allegedly seditious letter.
Malaysiakini , set up in 1999, is Malaysia's only independent online news daily. Unlike the print and electronic media, it is free of licensing requirements because the government has pledged there would be no control of Internet content in line with the move to create the Multimedia Super Corridor, Malaysia's answer to Silicon Valley.
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