COMMENT Years ago, as I recall it, Dr Mahathir Mohamad promised that Malaysia will not impose blocks on websites.

Therefore, since the early years, despite the former prime minister’s iron fist, we have never heard of the government blocking access to websites on the Internet. Neither did we hear of media offices being raided, similar to that happening recently to two major English news outlets, Malaysiakini and The Star .

Both media offices were visited by the police and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) recently over an article about the transfer of an officer from the Malaysia Anti-Corruption Agency who was involved in the investigation of the SRC International case where a total of RM40 million had allegedly made its way into Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s account.

While attorney-general Apandi Mohd Ali complains that the news of the transfer was “false”, the people are more concerned whether the investigation would be disrupted once again, with the transfer of the officer concerned. Internal or external, it makes no difference unless Apandi can assure us that investigation has not been hampered.

The attack on the media is happening more rampantly under the present administration. News portals are also being blocked. It is not only happening to Sarawak Report , but also to Malaysia Chronicle which, according to one of its editors Wong Choon Mei, was blocked by the MCMC on Oct 23.

Both Sarawak Report and Malaysia Chronicle happened to be websites that criticise the government. Interestingly, portals such as pro-Umno website MyKMU are not blocked in the same manner; neither is Dr Mahathir’s portal chedet.net and other websites related to Islamic State being blocked.

Blocking the access to Malaysia Chronicle did not come to me as a surprise, but it saddens me when someone sent me the link to a story highlighted in Malaysia Chronicle about the alleged land grab in Perak under the present Menteri Besar Dr Zambry Abdul Kadir.

The article highlighted the question raised by Perak DAP whip Ngeh Koo Ham to Dr Zambry about “over 4,000ha (10,000 acres) of state land (which) had been approved to Perak Menteri Besar Incorporated in the past four years, without transparency in the deals.”

The article was dated Nov 14, but I was unable initially to check it out. The issue is currently another hot topic in Perak.

Media as the fourth pillar for better check-and-balance

These are indeed important issues raised by a lawmaker in Perak, but the public can no longer access the link, because the MCMC has blocked the entire website.

A friend had read about an earlier article I wrote about a piece of land next to his apartment, which is intended for infrastructure and utilities, but there were plans by certain parties including the Menteri Besar Inc (MBInc) to build a multi-storey-high apartment.

Although residents were mainly concerned about their safety and the serenity of this side of Tambun, information about the high-rise building was hard to come by. It was only after they started investigating into the project that they found there was no building approval for the project, but advertisements had appeared in the newspapers.

Now, after reading Ngeh’s statement, questions will have to be asked to Dr Zambry whether Ngeh’s allegations were correct. If not, the onus is for Perak menteri besar to state the facts for the sake of the public. This, after all, is the role of the media as the fourth pillar in a democratic nation.

But with Malaysia Chronicle being blocked of its access, such important information was not flowing through. In my opinion, MCMC is wrong and doing things that are truly detrimental to parliamentary democracy.

Why block media in the first place?

I still find it hard to understand the rationale behind MCMC’s idea of blocking access to both Sarawak Report and Malaysia Chronicle .

With some ingenuity, almost anyone will be able to access the blocked websites. For example, Sarawak Report has been blocked for the past few months, but curious Malaysians will still be able to access it by typing http://www.sarawakreport.org to unblock it using http://www.unblockaccess.com/.

Now, in order to read the article in Malaysia Chronicle , I had to do was to apply the same trick. Lo and behold, the article is easily accessible! So, why block it in the first place?

In fact, after searching the Internet for the keywords ‘Malaysia Chronicle blocked’, I found an article by The Malaysian Insider which provided a simple step-by-step procedure to access the news portal. There are also computer experts who provide good guidelines on how to unblock such websites and the easiest is to change to Google Public DNS.

Although I may not necessary be a computer wizard to understand the terminology used such as ‘DNS’, even a dummy like me can follow through the procedure and still circumvent the block; therefore, I see no logical reasons for MCMC to even bother to block the access to Malaysia Chronicle or Sarawak Report .

We are not communist China to behave like dictators who tell the Malaysian public what they should and should not read?

Footnote:

You can also view the page after copying and pasting the URL to your browser:

1) http://www.unblockaccess.com/service/page.php?u=y2j86zgDE1qsjP5Ee31zD0XO%2BEOiXv7c&b=5&f=norefer

2) http://www.unblockaccess.com/service/page.php?u=DtVg5OnxCspXb%2FoCKrkXxxswUvEeuProaoyyHvThnptEbLNiAiy2SAkKASUiy5W4j1OI4pr9BozZy1k5sEV%2Fz%2BQ7g%2BgQ%2BTMOAFrr9Bo6hPuGwxhvCT6mtJWUmSx20Ov3ffaGtu8I4NpqLXUDJSKr3IEGBJ%2FrvQ8Vgt%2Bd2xELADKXVLGm4cCD%2BxMFoajeFXbBv79ceVaNfObNJeZNeozW5cLJsAC4toeSME0lPvfRhH8G%2FxbROj9xEsU%3D&b=5#axzz3rTV22VKz)

STEPHEN NG is an ordinary citizen with an avid interest in following political developments in the country since 2008.