In the latest twist to yesterday’s sudden removal of a White House online petition which re-emerged just before midnight, it finally reached the 100,000 mark early this morning - one day before the 30-day deadline.

                                   

As at 8am, the total signatures on the petition are 106,419.

 

The petition which called for the release Opposition Leader Anwar Ibrahim and spearheaded by former United States ambassador to Malaysia John R Malott, was suspended for 14 hours when it was about 4,000 signatories shy of the target.

 

The deadline for the petition is tomorrow, March 12. A petition requires 100,000 signatures to warrant a response from the US president.

 

The petition was yanked from the White House website yesterday ostensibly for “violation of the terms of participants”.

 

Malott ( left ) told Malaysiakini he did not receive any notifications from the White House regarding the removal of his petition.

 

“I was surprised to learn that the petition had been suspended, and that the White House website said that we had violated the terms and conditions, which we had not. The website also said that they would contact me, but they never did. So I was mystified,” he said.

 

Malott said he subsequently called the White House, and the office which handles the petitions told him to send an email regarding his query.

 

US embassy explains mistake

 

There has been so far no explanation why the petition was suspended and why it was put back online.

 

“I can only speculate what the reason was for this mistake. I have two theories. The White House computer system tries to detect signatures that are not ‘real’ and which are generated by computer bots,” said Malott.

 

“So one theory is that their computer system detected the fast rise in signatures over the past few days and automatically shut down the petition until someone could check the validity of the signatures.

 

“The computer did that around 10pm at night (10am yesterday Malaysian time) and put up the ‘removal’ page. Then, when a real live human being came to work on Tuesday morning (Washington DC time) and looked into it, they saw that the signatures were valid, and so they reinstated the petition.

 

“The other theory is human error. They confused the two petitions - the Anwar petition and the ‘respect the sovereignly of Malaysia’ petition. Many people in Malaysia believe that the counter-petition signatures are in large measure computer-generated and are not genuine.

 

“So the theory is that someone in the White House said ‘take the petition down’, and they confused the two Malaysia-related petitions. That would explain why we were later reinstated and instead, (and) why the counter-petition has now been removed.”

 

Malott ‘elated’

                       

The counter petition which urged the Obama administration not to interfere in the Malaysian judiciary was suspended early this morning by the White House website.

        

However, at 9am the counter petition went back online but with a drastic reduction in signatories - 12,070 instead of around 70,000 when it was pulled down.

 

Both petitions were neck-to-neck a few days ago, but the pro-Anwar petition added more than 30,000 signatures in the past 48 hours, likely due to heavy campaigning by PKR and DAP.

 

Malott said he was “elated” that his petition crossed the 100,000 mark before the deadline expired.

 

“It is very rare for any petition on the White House website to garner more than a few thousand signatures. But this is only the first of several steps to focus international attention on Anwar’s incarceration and the deteriorating status of political freedom in Malaysia.”

 

The pro-Anwar petition was launched on Feb 10 - the day Anwar was sentenced for five years jail.

 

“The future of democracy in Malaysia is at stake. Securing Anwar's release from prison must be a top priority in US policy towards Malaysia, to be advanced in every way possible,” says the petition.