Malaysiakini has voiced its concern that a public-owned media is being used to launch baseless attacks against the independent news organisation.

For the past week, national broadcasting station RTM has been regularly featuring malaysiakini in its news coverage. Earlier in the week, it quoted Information Ministry parliamentary secretary Zainuddin Maidin questioning the online daily's credibility and funding sources.

Yesterday, RTM ran an interview with Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar which contained more baseless allegations and raised doubts of the credibility of the website's editor Steven Gan.

"There are many holes in RTM's coverage of malaysiakini and it is amazing that the stories were aired. This could either be a result of shoddy journalism or a direct use of public media and funds to attack malaysiakini ," said the company's chief executive officer Premesh Chandran in a press statement today.

'Untrue report'

In yesterday's news report, RTM also stated that Gan's expos on the deaths of 59 inmates in the Semenyih illegal immigrants detention camp in Selangor was untrue.

It said Bukit Aman's public relations head Supt Benjamin Hasbi has denied the reported figure, stipulating that only eight people died, including a police officer. It also said Syed Hamid questioned how Gan could receive an award for an "untrue report".

In his [#1] editorial [/#] today, Gan clarified that the RTM report had gotten two unrelated incidents mixed up, the first involving a riot by foreign workers when the government tried to deport them, and the second being the expose by Gan and his team at The Sun on the deaths of migrant workers at the Semenyih detention camp.

The piece, entitled 'Shattered Dreams', won a Malaysian Press Institute award in 1996, which Gan and his colleagues received from Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad himself.

Malaysiakini has called on RTM to apologise for, and correct, its reports.

Editor's credibility

As for Zainuddin's claim that he had 'evidence' that Gan had previously worked for an anti-government newspaper, Chandran noted that the only paper Gan has worked for in Malaysia was The Sun .

"Is he (Zainuddin) suggesting that The Sun is anti-government?" Chandran asked.

Malaysiakini has faxed a list of questions to the former editor-in-chief of Kumpulan Utusan pertaining to the Internet news organisation's press accreditation and his widely-reported scepticism of its credibility, but he has refused to respond to them.

Chandran also called on Zainuddin to stop hurling unfounded allegations against malaysiakini .

"If Zainuddin has doubts about our independence, we are prepared to meet him to clear the air. But if he continues to make baseless allegations against us, then it just seems that he is out to damage our credibility."

Chandran said that it is not true that malaysiakini has refused to answer questions from journalists.

"We are willing to receive questions in writing so that we could answer them in writing. This is to ensure that our answers will not be taken out of context, given our previous experience with the government-owned RTM," he said.

Legal action

On the issue of legal action, Chandran stated that the company has a clear policy that legal action for libel and defamation is detrimental to freedom of speech and should be pursued as the last course of action and not the first.

"We believe that all efforts should be made to correct and clarify reports rather than utilising legal channels to seek damages. Nevertheless, we will take the necessary action in cases where parties continue to make unfounded allegations," said Chandran.