KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has refused to grant a print license to a news portal often critical of the government despite a landmark court ruling in the site’s favour, its editor said yesterday, in a case spotlighting the regime’s curbs on press freedom.
In a letter last week, the home ministry informed Malaysiakini.com it had rejected its application for a permit to publish a newspaper, as its news coverage “often causes controversy and is not neutral.”
“Such news, if published in the print format, will cause shock and distress among the people” and “could cause hatred towards national leaders,” said the letter.
The government maintains a tight rein on traditional media, which are decidedly pro-government.
Websites such as Malaysiakini have over the past decade rapidly gained a following in the Internet-literate nation with reports on government malfeasance, abuses and persistent corruption, filling a growing demand for alternative news sources.
Last year, an appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that the government improperly curbed freedom of expression by denying Malaysiakini a printing permit.
But the ruling United Malays National Organisation is implementing a broad clampdown on freedom of speech that has seen dozens of people, mostly opposition politicians or activists, targeted with sedition investigations or other charges. AFP
