The management of suspended forthnightly magazine, Detik , has suffered a loss of RM360,000 since its publication was discontinued in December last year.

Its former editor-in-chief, Ahmad Lufti Othman claimed that sales of four issues of the magazine, which would have been published in the last two months, have been postponed since the publication permit expired in November.

"We are unable to sell the magazine in the newsstands as we have not received a response from the Home Ministry on the renewal of the permit application," he told malaysiakini today.

"We are facing difficulties in terms of business as we have to still pay the staff their salaries but are at the same time unable to gain revenue from our publication," Lufti said.

He added that he had, yesterday, sent in a letter to Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is also Home Affairs Minister, to intervene in the matter and help speed up the renewal.

The publication received a show cause letter from the ministry on Dec 24 requiring the publication to explain why its permit should not be withdrawn. The ministry claimed that Detik had committed three offences, that is, it had not printed the publisher's address on the magazine, had placed the publishing permit under Pemuda Publications without the ministry's consent and had appointed Lufti as its editor-in-chief without informing the ministry.

"We responded to the show cause letter on Dec 28 but have not received a reply till today," Lufti added.

Lufti also claimed that the management was facing difficulties in marketing two other publications as vendors and distributors were afraid to sell them. According to Lufti, thousands of copies of the two non-periodical publications, Debat and a special issue of the last general elections analysis, have been left unsold as vendors and distributors claimed to have been harassed and threatened by the ministry and police.

"We have another 10,000 unsold copies of the general election analysis issued in December. The vendors in certain areas claimed that they have had other similar non-periodicals confiscated and they were also threatened by the ministry's officials and police," Lufti said.

"Many of them are unwilling to distribute the publications although we have complied to the ministry's requirements for such publications," he added.

Lufti said that 30,000 copies of Debat , which were published this month have yet to go to the newsstands.

An official in charge of publications in the Home Ministry, Tengku Mahmood Tengku Ismail, however denied that the ministry had threatened or harassed vendors and distributors.

"We do not threaten or harass vendors. We go according to procedures when we seize or confiscate publications," he said when contacted by malaysiakini , adding that a letter is always issued to the vendors or distributors when a confiscation is made.

"The editor is probably making us the scapegoat when his marketing strategy is not doing well," Mahmood said.

While it is true that a non-periodical publication or book does not require a permit but only the names and addresses of the publisher and printer on the publication, Tengku added that the ministry had the right to seize the publications if its contents were malicious towards certain persons or parties.

Meanwhile, in relation to Detik 's permit application, Mahmood said that the ministry was still investigating its application. "It will take some time as we have to look into the original permit application and see how far the magazine had deviated from it," Mahmood said.