Student intimidation abroad is bad PR for Malaysia

COMMENT The Malaysian government is not doing themselves any favours by futilely trying to limit the freedoms of students studying abroad.

On Monday, the Public Services Department's (PSD) Australian adviser reportedly threatened "stern action" against scholarship students in Australia if they attended an upcoming event with opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim.

Anwar yesterday spoke at the Adelaide Festival of Ideas, which reportedly had a focus on "political institutions and where they went wrong".

Despite the threats of losing their scholarships, according to the Australian wire service Australian Associated Press many students attended the event, though those spoken to asked to remain anonymous.

So while the PSD didn't manage to scare away students, they did manage to get themselves a spread in the Australian papers.

On Friday, one of Australia's leading news agencies, the Fairfax Media, reported on the intimidation along with comments from the South Australian State Premier Jay Weatherill and South Australian Senator Nick Xenophon heralding Anwar.

Xenophon called Anwar a "beacon of hope for democracy, not just in Malaysia but the whole region".

Law broken?

Opening the paper this Sunday morning, (in the general news section rather than the ‘world news') readers of The Age read Anwar's claims that the Malaysian government was breaching Australian law, along with calls by Xenophon for the government to take action on the matter.

The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday released a statement defending the rights of Malaysian students to attend the event, and seeming to support Anwar's claim that the Malaysian government had broken Australian laws.

‘‘All students residing in Australia, including Malaysian students, enjoy all rights and liberties available under the Australian law, including the ability to attend a wide variety of legitimate events taking place in Australia. The Festival of Ideas in Adelaide is one such event." The Age quoted a department spokesperson as saying.

This comes after last week The Age ran a half page spread in their world news section on Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi's controversial "shoot first" comments to police.

In a country where the former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, once praised Malaysia as a "vibrant and flourishing democracy", the recent media coverage does not put across a good image of Malaysia to a population that is largely ignorant of the political and human rights situation of their neighbors to the north.

Along with the bad media coverage, trying to control the activities of Malaysian students abroad is a folly and will only likely make students who aren't already political, question why their government is so keen to control their movements.

To the students who are studying in Australia and are getting used to a country which strongly defends the right to free speech and freedom of association, the absurd contrast of the intimidation by Malaysian authorities would must only serve to highlight the difference between the two ‘democracies' .

JARNI BLAKKARLY is an Australian-Malaysian journalism student based in Melbourne, who has previously interned with Malaysiakini.