Bloggers Ahirudin Attan and Jeff Ooi, who are facing defamation suits by the New Straits Times Press (NSTP), today set out their strategy to fight the suits and it includes being cautious and defensive.

Speaking at a press conference organised by Centre of Independent Journalism (CIJ) and Writers Alliance for Media Independence (Wami) in Kuala Lumpur today, the two bloggers said they had to tread cautiously as this was the first time bloggers were being sued for their online comments.

Ahirudin and Ooi revealed last Thursday that they were being sued for defamation by NSTP and are currently awaiting for hearings on Jan 25 and 30 respectively.

Ahirudin, who runs Rocky's Bru, is being sued by NSTP, its deputy chairperson Kalimullah Hassan, chief executive officer Syed Faisal Albar, group editor-in-chief Hishamudin Aun and former group editor Brendan Pereira.

Meanwhile, Ooi who operates Screenshots is being sued by NSTP, Kalimullah, Hishamuddin and Pereira.

The applicants are also seeking for an injunction together with the removal of 13 blog posts for Ooi and 48 posts for Ahirudin.

Ooi said they are exercising caution because this is the first time that an opinion space is being decided by a court of law.

"We are extra cautious because this is precedent, the first time in the Malaysian or even world wide history that you are subjecting the opinion space to be decided by the court of law rather than the people who breathe and live that opinion space."

"We know that the precedent if not handled well may have a lot of ramifications. So we will be very careful and very cautious about it," he told reporters.

Space for debate

He explained that blogging to him was not about the freedom of expression but for the gathering of discussions and debates.

"We'll leave it to the experts to define what freedom of expression is but [...] but my focus is to tell a story that the mainstream media is not printing.

"Bloggers come to give it an intellectual definition how we can get this conversation along. But if you use laws to muzzle bloggers, that is another question," he said.

However, Ooi noted that this defamation suit had brought positive outcomes, including the possibility of setting up a legal fund for bloggers.

"We want to have a legal fund instituted, to start a form of investigative journalism or have workshop for bloggers. So if bloggers are under attack, they would have at least have a recourse," he said.

The possible trustees for the fund include Marina Mahathir and former NSTP group editor-in-chief A Kadir Jasin, who are also bloggers.

Asked whether they were approached by the applicants before filing their suit over the alleged defamatory articles, Ooi replied: "Affirmative, no"

Healthy criticism

Ahirudin expressed that he still had love for NSTP after working there for over 20 years.

"For those individuals, they are all known to me. I have served the New Straits Times more than three of them combined [...] I have more love for New Straits Times than them, oh that could be defamatory," he mused.

He later shared a story where he and Ooi crossed swords several years back when Ahirudin was with The Malay Mail and Ooi was already blogging then.

"There was name calling, he used his blog space to criticise and I used my column in the Sunday Times to respond. Had it gone on and on it would've been a healthy debate.

"One thing I didn't do is to take any legal action against him," he added.

Also present at the press conference were CIJ director Sonia Randhawa, Wami chairperson Wong Chin Huat and community blogger Tan Han Kuo.