Among the reasons news portal The Malaysian Insider ( TMI ) was blocked was due to an article on Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak, Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak has confirmed.

"Yes, one of the articles quoted the (Operations Review) Panel (ORP) on a number of statements that were confusing and contradicted the statement by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC)," Salleh told journalists in Shah Alam today.

The article titled ‘Enough proof to charge Najib over SRC, says MACC oversight committee’, quoted an anonymous member of the ORP, an oversight committee of the MACC.

The ORP in a statement yesterday denied the TMI report quoted the anonymous panel member as saying: "The MACC investigators had collected sufficient evidence to prove a prima facie case against Najib."

However, this ORP statement was signed by only two of the eight members on the panel, namely its chairperson Hamid Bugo and a member, Mohamed Jawhar Hassan.

'Website violated Malaysian law'

Yesterday, Internet users on Celcom and UniFi complained they were unable to access TMI and instead greeted with a Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission notice.

The notice said the website was blocked as it had violated Malaysian law.

The MCMC in a statement later in the day confirmed the block imposed on the TMI site, saying it had violated Section 233 of the Communication and Multimedia Act related to the misuse of network facilities but did not provide details.

Users on other Internet service providers are still able to access the news portal.

Asked how long the news portal will be blocked, Salleh said he was not involved in the decision.

“The MCMC operates independently. They have their own panel of investigators that work closely with the police.

“They only informed me of the decision they made. The minister does not make the decision,” he said.

Salleh assured other portals that any action will not be taken lightly.

“We will investigate every complaint. We do (not) block on a whim. There is a preliminary investigation.

“If the preliminary investigation does not find wrongdoing, then we would not have done so (block).

Asked if former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's blog, which has been highly critical of Najib, will also be blocked, Salleh said the MCMC needs to conduct an investigation first.

Salleh insisted that there are limits to freedom of speech.

“We are bound by rules. We have freedom of speech but we do not have the freedom to destroy,” he said.

Meanwhile, TMI reported that a police report was lodged against Salleh yesterday, accusing the minister of abuse of power in blocking the site.

The report was lodged by 70-year-old activist Badaruddin Ismail at the Dang Wangi district police headquarters last night.