Malaysiakini 's application for media passes to cover the Umno's General Assembly on May 11-13 was rejected today.

According to the staff manning the meeting secretariat at Putra World Trade Centre, the office had "run out" of media passes.

A source from Umno told malaysiakini that the last date to apply for a media pass was last Tuesday.

"There were only 1,000 media passes available for the press and malaysiakini was late in submitting its application," she added.

Meanwhile, Harakah editor Zulkifli Sulong told malaysiakini that his newspaper has decided not to apply for the media passes to cover next week's Umno general assembly.

According to him, the tabloid's previous applications for media passes had been consistently rejected.

The reason given by Umno officials was that Harakah is not a public newspaper but a party organ.