SOURCE: AFP/Malaysiakini
URL: www.malaysiakini.com/news/62804
Bloggers undeterred by lawsuit
Jan 30, 07 5:53pm
Two Malaysian bloggers being sued by a newspaper today said the move would not suppress their activities.
Malaysian bloggers and rights campaigners have come out in force criticising a defamation lawsuit by the government-linked New Straits Times Press (NSTP) against bloggers Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Attan.
Under a deal floated by New Straits Times Press, its newspaper and Ooi today agreed to refrain from publishing articles or posting comments related to the unprecedented lawsuit.
The move follows a similar agreement between Ahirudin and the NSTP on Monday.
But the suit and the blackout, which both sides said was to prevent prejudicing the case, would spark even more comments online, the two bloggers said.
“The readers at large are discerning. We are viewing this defamation suit quite positively. It will sprout more blogs,” Ooi told AFP.
“This doesn’t stop other bloggers from writing about it. We can’t speak but others will want to continue speaking about it,” he said.
The NSTP’s lawsuit has triggered criticism from watchdogs who say it will stifle free expression in Malaysia, where the media is tightly controlled.
Growing online support
Ahirudin, who writes the Rocky’s Bru blog, and Ooi of Screenshots are being sued for a series of items critical of government policy that were published on their sites last year.
“We are living in a changed world, this is how we communicate and we think for ourselves and having this liberalised mindscape is good for the country,” Ooi said.
Ahirudin said Internet websites and new blogs had mushroomed in a show of support for bloggers since the lawsuit against him was filed earlier this month.
“After the case has been brought to court, there seems to be a lot more discussion. There has been an explosion of news on the blog and even new blogs were created to support the bloggers,” Ahirudin told AFP.
“This is going to be more and more pronounced as we go along (with the case) and it is not about to shut blogs up,” he said.
Malaysia’s high court has set February 22 to hear Ahirudin’s application to strike out the suit, while Ooi’s strike-out application will be heard on March 6.
- AFP
January 31, 2007 at 1:09 am
The ideal living space for these scumbag of the journalism world is Singapore, where they can sue and turn the other poor fellow bankrupt. However, the process of law in Malaysia has yet to meet the swiftness and brutality of Singapore’s.
For Kalimullah, the primary objective is to silence critiques and remove the critical issues from public eyes.
We saw he was successful to initially silence Husam & Harakahdaily on the ECM-Avenue merger issue. That was when the guerilla web/blog start to takeover and dessiminate online. It was heard that this spark a minority challenge to the merger at the Avenue EGM. But it died down. Mathias Chang attempt to garner attention but he gone overboard with corruption accusation and Kali sued him and achieve the same “ceasefire”. Finally it was within the UMNO Penerangan Negeri sessions at FT, Selangor and Penang that they could not stop the issue anymore from the floor. Even when they had a parlimentary PAC, it was hot for only 2 session and than quiet.
SO the lesson from the ECM-Avenue merger episode are that there must be a wide and broad strategy, tactic and initiative to make an issue heard and the other side react. So, I wish to suggest several things below:
1. We need to make available those questionable issues. For Rocky & Jeff lawsuit case, we need to issues to be discussed and widely available and not lost under injunction. Yes this is contempt of court. And that is why we need sniper (penembak curi) or guerilla bloggers.
2. Promote an active blogging discussion and let blogging proliferate. This is make those in power to take notice that “citizen journalism” cannot be stiffle. They cannot be dismiss as rubbish and their watchdog could anywhere, even in their homes, neiughbourhood, office, and such. Believe me in many office at PWTC, near Lake Garden, Putrajaya, and etc etc etc are takign notice, positively or negatively.
3. Part of being heard would be a for a “Petaling Street Project”-like blog aggregator dedicated to socio-political and public interest issue. This way we have a main blog referral for serious news and discussion of citizen interest. We have a place to inform of new blog coming on stream. We have a place for archiving and searching for research from, blog material.
4. We need to make sure a way is created to ensure certain issue remain hot and updated. Off hand, I can think of individual initiative dedicated to a certain specific issue and this is the blog reference authority on it. Walk with us is a good example to dedicate for strictly this blogger sued issue. Perhaps will proliferate an ECM-Avenue watchdog blog or PM Indulgence Watch dedicated to monitor his poem damai abadi declaration is abide ..heheh
5. We need to compliment the online information dissemination effort with many citizen action initiative like Blogger United, Minority Shareholder Watchdog Group, etc. The example was the few shareholders that rose to grill the Directors and Corporate Advisors at the Avenue EGM. Maybe demonstration but I pesonally do not quite like this course of action.
6. Please please please … no partisan politics. Issues easily gets muddled and lost when political parties start barging in for branding. Notice when an issue is stolen by opposition political party into an UMNO bashing exercise, UMNO’s rank would automatically unite, turn into defensive, likely to retaliate & spin the issue, and issue lost in the BN-Opposition lock. As my ECM Lbra example has shown, issues is off concern by public, opposition and even UMNO people.
Ok thats all this early morning off hand thoughts.
January 31, 2007 at 1:46 am
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