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Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)
Malaysian government intensifies harassment of political bloggers
New York, August 19, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists
strongly condemns the recent harassment of popular bloggers Raja
Petra Kamarudin and Abdul Rashid Bakar.
On August 15, Raja Petra, editor of the Malaysia Today news Web
site, was ordered by a Malaysian Court to reveal the sources for
three of his posted articles, which accused prominent local lawyer
Muhammad Shafee Abdullah of conspiring with police in relation to
sodomy charges recently filed against opposition leader Anwar
Ibrahim, according to news reports. Shafee has strenuously denied
the allegations.
The court also asked Raja Petra to reveal the identities of
visitors who had posted comments on his blog in connection with the
articles. Malaysian media reports said Raja Petra was ordered by
the court to remove the articles from Malaysia Today. As of
Tuesday, all three were still defiantly posted on the Web site,
which garners an audience of around 1.5 million unique readers per
day, according to Raja Petra.
In a separate case, on August 7, blogger Abdul Rashid Abu Bakar,
founder of the blog Penarik Beca, or Rickshaw Peddler, was arrested
by police for publishing a digitally altered image of the national
police insignia, according to local and international news reports.
In that image, a tiger on the symbol was replaced with a dog and
the words "Allah" and "Mohammad" on the symbol were replaced with
"C4," an explosive that was used in the murder of the Mongolian
interpreter that has been linked to Najib.
The blogger also replaced the word "Malaysia" with "Israel" in the
doctored image, according to local press freedom group the Center
for Independent Journalism. (Malaysia does not have formal
diplomatic ties with Israel.) Abdul Rashid was held in police
custody overnight and was released the following day on bail. The
authorities have not yet formally charged him, the group said.
"These cases are only the latest incidents in an intensifying
government campaign to undermine Malaysia's vibrant and growing
community of online commentators," said Robert Mahoney, CPJ's
deputy director. "We call on the Malaysian authorities to stop
harassing bloggers and uphold the spirit of the government's 1996
policy pledge not to censor the Internet."
Raja Petra now faces a wide array of legal charges for his critical
political writings. On May 6 he was charged and detained for three
days under Malaysia's draconian Sedition Act over postings he made
that linked Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Najib Abdul
Razak to the murder of a Mongolian interpreter. That trial is set
to begin in October. The blogger faces up to three years in
prison.
He was also arrested and charged on July 17 in relation to three
separate criminal defamation charges that stem from assertions he
made in a mid-June sworn statement that Najib's wife was near the
scene of the murder. Two military officials and the government have
filed the charges, each of which carries a possible two years in
prison. The trial began on August 15 and will resume after the
court decides whether to grant the prosecution's request to move
the case to a higher criminal court.
© 2008 Committee to Protect Journalists. www.cpj.org E-mail:
info@cpj.org
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