I got in touch recently with Suzette Martinez Standring, the author of the Art of Column Writing. The book is amazing, and you should get it. Anywa, during our correspondence, I introduced her to the Irene Fernandez court case. You can read her excellent column in full here. Here’s an excerpt: Statements from five key prosecution… [Read more…]
October 25, 2008
Malaysia’s Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar, was reported to have saidthat Internet media is no “alternative media” as more and more Malaysians were obtaining news and information from the Internet. He said this at after giving the keynote address at the Colloquium on Media Policy in Malaysia, organised by the Asian Institute for Developing Communication (Aidcom)… [Read more…]
October 24, 2008
Two Three issues have recently arisen in local journalism: 1. The Malaysiakini-Najib manifesto debacle News portal Malaysiakini reported a manifesto purported to be from Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s office. The “fake” manifesto included the statement that Najib intended to defend the supremacy of the Malay race till the last drop of his blood, if given the… [Read more…]
October 23, 2008
Blogger kickdefella, who was arrested for seeking the public to post the Malaysian national flag upside-down, has had his bail extended to Nov 21. Kickdefella, or Syed Azidi Syed Abdul Aziz, was arrested on Sept 17 was freed three days later on police bail. He was called in by the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) headquarters in Kuala Lumpur… [Read more…]
October 22, 2008
Deputy Chief Minister, Alfred Jabu Numpang, of the Malaysian state of Sarawak, has criticised blogger, Joseph Tawie for a posting on the latter’s blog. Freelance writer and blogger Tawie accused Sarawak state leaders of suppressing allegations of sexual abuse of Penan women in his blog, The Broken Shield. A blog post urged the state authorities to probe the… [Read more…]
October 20, 2008
There is a new global forum for democratic legislators called the e-Parliament. At an e-Parliament hearing on democracy held in Indonesia last December, it was decided that a key role for the e-Parliament should be to enable democratically-elected representatives to speak out together for free expression on the Internet. Thus began the call for e-Freedom, supporting… [Read more…]
October 12, 2008
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has started it’s own blog platform. I’m not sure if it’s free, a few months back it was a paid service (to support RSF), with a free trial. Now, it’s not very clear, because on the left column, it says it’s free, whereas on the right column, it says one month’s… [Read more…]
October 11, 2008
Looks like Singaporeans are getting to be as vocal as Malaysians. Awesomeness with marshmallows! A group of students protested at Speakers Corner recently on the censorship of campus media. Click here and here for more. Also, click here for a proposal on Internet Freedom for Singapore. I also stumbled upon this good blog by Cherian… [Read more…]
October 10, 2008
Blogger “Sammy”, reported to be a 22 year old employee in a Kuala Lumpur advertising firm, was reported to have posted anti-Indian sentiments on her blog,Life is a Drama. The blogger posted her comments after she claimed her mobile phone was stolen by two alleged Indian youths when she was having lunch on Sept 23. The Hindu… [Read more…]
October 9, 2008
Former Singaporean citizen and naturalized American, Gopalan Nair, has been sentenced to three months imprisonment for insulting a high court judge on his blog. Newspaper reports that the court, in handing out the sentence, had stated that Gopalan had “scandalised…the judiciary and the administration of justice in Singapore” On his blog, Gopalan had allegedly insulted Justice Belinda… [Read more…]
October 7, 2008
Malaysian Prime Minister, Abdullah Badawi, unwittingly had more than 50 activists at Eid’ul Fitri celebrations at the Putra World Trade Centre on October 1st. About twenty of these were bloggers, led by blogger and lawyer, Haris Ibrahim, who wanted to personally tell the Prime Minister they wanted the Internal Security Act (ISA) repealed, and that all detainees,… [Read more…]
October 6, 2008
Wee Meng Chee, aka Namewee, was quizzed by the police on the matter of his rap song, which featured the Malaysian national anthem “Negaraku”, in the chorus. The song, entitled ’Negarakuku’, had caused controversy last year, with Chinese lyrics purportedly touching on police abuses, corruption and racial discrimination, among others. Wee’s video for ‘Negarakuku‘ was posted on Youtube last… [Read more…]
October 3, 2008
When the March elections came about, a new news portal came on to the scene. Claiming to want to give Malaysian news greater objectivity, the Malaysian Insider became part and parcel of the discerning online news reader’s daily diet. Malaysians have now grown quite fond of the Malaysian Insider. It seems even the government is… [Read more…]
September 29, 2008
Just as the MCMC unblocks “Malaysia Today”, Raja Petra Kamaruddin’s controversial news portal, Malaysiakini reports that Raja Petra (or RPK) (pic below) has been arrested under the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA). RPK’s wife, Marina Lee Abdullah, was reported to have said that he was arrested at 1310 on 12th September 2008, with 10 police personnel in attendance at… [Read more…]
September 26, 2008
In light of the its aim to encourage the people to use the internet as a means of disseminating information, the Malaysian government has restored access to the Malaysia Today news portal, together with the other sites which have been blocked since January 2008. According to the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), more than… [Read more…]
October 30, 2008
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