The Far Eastern Economic Review report stating that financier George Soros was one of the funders of Internet news website malaysiakini is false, said the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (Seapa) today.

In an article in the latest issue of the Hong Kong-based Review , it was stated that malaysiakini was among the media organisations in Asia which received funds from the Open Society fund, a charity body set up by the US-based billionaire.

The Review 's managing editor Michael Vatikiotis has since issued a clarification stating that, "In 'Levelling the Playing Field'(Feb 8), we reported that Malaysiakini.com receives support from George Soros' Open Society Foundation. Rather, the Open Society Foundation funds the Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance, one source of funding for Malaysiakini.com."

The clarification implied that while malaysiakini did not receive funds from Soros as originally asserted by the magazine, the Internet news website is, however, receiving the funds indirectly through Seapa.

According to Seapa, this partial clarification by the Review is "misleading".

"None of the funds that Seapa has provided to malaysiakini comes directly or indirectly from the OSI (Open Society Institute) or George Soros," said Seapa, in a statement jointly signed by the representatives of its five member organisations.

It explained that the organisation has received a grant from OSI, the funding agency supported by Soros, to support the work of a project consultant from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists to work with Seapa for 24 months.

"This is the only support that Seapa has received from OSI and it was used to fund the consultant's work and part of the administrative requirements of running Seapa's Bangkok office."

It said that Seapa receives support from a consortium of donors that includes, among others, United Nations' agencies, Unesco and UNDP.

Mistake pointed out

Yesterday, OSI also sent a statement to the Review to point out the mistake in its report.

The statement, signed by OSI's senior policy advisor Laura Silber in New York, clarified that the institute does not provide any funding to malaysiakini "directly or indirectly".

"As far as Seapa is concerned, OSI provided a grant in the form of a stipend to an advisor for the CPJ," said Silber.

New York-based CPJ works closely with Seapa - a regional network of journalist organisations - in a joint effort to monitor the violations of press freedom in Southeast Asia.

"No funding whatsoever has been extended from OSI through Seapa to Malaysiakini.com," Silber added.

However, Review 's Vatikiotis refused to concede that the magazine had made a error. He was quoted by New Straits Times today as saying, "We are not moving from our clarification and we are not changing it."

Promote independent media

Seapa provided a US$100,000 grant to malaysiakini last year as part of an effort to promote the development of independent media in the region.

"In Malaysia, Seapa has helped raise startup and operating capital for malaysiakini and organise last October a dialogue with Malaysian journalists on access to information," it said.

It added that it has initiated similar programmes to assist the emergence of independent media in Cambodia and East Timor.

The Seapa statement, which was faxed to the Review from its Bangkok office and copied to malaysiakini , is jointly signed by the organisation's chairperson Kavi Chongkittarvorn, president of Thai Journalists Association, Indonesia's Alliance of Independent Journalists international affair director Lukas Luwarso and Institute for the Studies of Free Flow of Information secretary-general Andreas Harsono, the Philippines' Center of Media Freedom and Responsibility executive director Melinda Quintos de Jesus and Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism executive director Sheila S Coronel.