Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News
Malaysia Today - Your Source of Independent News |
| Posted: 24 Jul 2013 04:20 PM PDT I know some of you come to Malaysia Today not to engage in an intellectual discourse but just to whack. So I expect these types of people to no longer visit Malaysia Today. That is not a problem and I am not sorry to see you go. You are free to take your rubbish elsewhere because we really do not treasure readers like you. I would rather have 250,000 intellectual readers than 1,000,000 nut cases who do not add value to Malaysia Today. NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
6,640 websites blocked since 2008 INAPPROPRIATE: They contained pornographic and malicious content (NST) - THE Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has blocked 6,640 websites since 2008. Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Jailani Johari said the blocked websites contained either pornography or malicious content or infringed copyrights. "As of June this year, the commission is investigating 29 cases of websites with questionable content." However, Jailani said, the ministry preferred the educational approach in encouraging Netizens to self-regulate the content that they post online. He said this was because of the expansive nature of the Internet, which made it impossible to control the contents of personal websites and blogs. "Although the government feels that there should be no Internet censorship, it does not mean that people can post seditious or malicious things online, especially those that can create disunity," he said in reply to a question by Senator Abdul Shukor Mohd Sultan during questioning at Dewan Negara. Shukor wanted to know if the government planned on censoring websites and blogs that carried defamatory content against the government and royalty. **************************************** Malaysia Today, too, was blocked for two weeks back in August 2008. They blocked it the day of the Permatang Pauh by-election, which Anwar Ibrahim contested and won. In fact, they blocked it as the votes were being counted so we were not able to report the results. I then met up with the MCMC to try to negotiate with them. They agreed to meet but told me that the meeting was unofficial and off-the-record. So we met in a Bangsar steakhouse. MCMC's main bone of contention was regarding the comments in Malaysia Today. They were not happy with the anti-Malay and anti-Islam comments posted by our readers. If I can assure them that I will moderate the comments and not allow the anti-Malay and anti-Islam comments to get through then they will agree to unblock Malaysia Today. I agreed and gave them my assurance that I will 'control' the comments and they unblocked Malaysia Today. The next day, however, the police came to my house to detain me under the Internal Security Act for the crime of 'insulting Islam'. Before that, the police had raided the homes and/or offices of more than 40 of our readers who had posted comments in Malaysia Today. Somehow the police managed to trace these people. The police also confiscated their computers as evidence. All were let off with a warning except for one, an Umno Blogger, who was charged for sedition. In fact, we helped raise his bail although he is an Umno Blogger. As far as we are concerned he is a victim of persecution. Therefore, political affiliations should not stop us from doing the right thing or prevent us from fighting for justice for that person. Since May this year, Malaysia Today is again being flooded with hate postings. We get about 200-300 comments a day of which more than half need to be deleted. If you think that the comments posted in Malaysia Today are downright nasty you should see the ones that did not get posted. I suspect a lot of these comments are being posted by cyber-troopers who have mischievous intent. The fact that most of these comments are out of point and deviate from the topic gives rise to this suspicion. They not only hijack the discussion and bring it into a totally unrelated topic but they indulge in Malay- and Islam-bashing as well. What surprise me most are the anti-Chinese and anti-Indian comments posted by the non-Malay readers. Why would the Chinese and Indians want to post comments that whack their own race if not merely to justify the anti-Malay and anti-Islam comments? This certainly appears very suspicious. I have three other people (other than me) who update Malaysia Today. All three are Chinese and they get to pick what they would like to post. Even though sometimes I do not agree with some of the postings (such as those that 'embarrass' Islam), I do not interfere with what they post. They have absolute freedom to post what they want. The problem we face is regarding the job of moderating the comments. None of our people want to moderate comments because they hate reading the comments. So getting someone to read the comments and then approve or reject them does not seem possible. No one wants to do that job. I too am tired of looking through the comments so I may stop doing this. I have already stopped doing so over the last few days -- unless I really have nothing to do. And that is why of late you have probably seen less comments posted and even when they are it is very ad hoc. There are two schools of thought. One is that I allow a free-for-all. That means we do not moderate comments. We tried that once and it did not work. People do not understand freedom of speech and they turned Malaysia Today into a rubbish dump. The other school of thought is that we do not allow those who are not registered to post comments. That means you need to register to post comments. That may be the better option. It will, of course, open you to risk because then the police can trace you if you post irresponsible and nasty comments. But then if you commit a crime you should pay for it rather than expose Malaysia Today to the risk of getting blocked like the more than 6,000 other websites, which, as the government said, have questionable, malicious and defamatory content. The signals we seem to receive is that a big clampdown is about to begin. Before Malaysia Today ends up as one of the victims of this clampdown I have no choice but to act. And since none of you care about what happens to Malaysia Today then you have to lose your privilege of airing your views. (Yes, it is a privilege, not a right). I know some of you come to Malaysia Today not to engage in an intellectual discourse but just to whack. So I expect these types of people to no longer visit Malaysia Today. That is not a problem and I am not sorry to see you go. You are free to take your rubbish elsewhere because we really do not treasure readers like you. I would rather have 250,000 intellectual readers than 1,000,000 nut cases who do not add value to Malaysia Today.
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| While we await the Kuala Besut by-election result Posted: 23 Jul 2013 04:02 PM PDT To the Malays, this is in an 'internal matter' regarding Islam and involving the Muslims. So they would regard these nasty comments and the anti-Islam comments by the non-Muslims as an attempt to interfere in Islam. As what one reader commented: do the Malays tell the Chinese whether they should or should not eat pork? NO HOLDS BARRED Raja Petra Kamarudin
(The Star) - Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin wants action to be taken against those responsible for forcing non-Muslim pupils to eat in the changing room at a school in Sungai Buloh. "I have instructed the director-general of the Education Ministry to investigate the issue of non-Muslim pupils who are asked to eat in a toilet (tandas)," wrote Muhyiddin, who is Education Minister, in his Twitter account. "Stern action would be taken if there is any basis (to the complaint)," added Muhyddin. ******************************************* (NST) - Election Commission (EC) chairman and deputy chairman today dared PKR strategic director Rafizi Ramli to repeat his remark linking them to indelible ink supplier outside parliament. Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Mohd Yusof and Datuk Wan Ahmad Wan Omar said the Pandan member of Parliament was given a week to repeat the statement, which he made in the Dewan Rakyat on July 16, outside the Parliament if he was man enough. Abdul Aziz said Rafizi cannot use his parliamentary immunity to make baseless allegations without giving the accused the chance to defend themselves. ******************************************* (The Star) - The Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi) has launched an investigation against the four Muslim Miss Malaysia-World finalists as they are deemed to have insulted Islam. Its director Datuk Che Mat Che Ali said Jawi's enforcement unit would look into the matter following a Malay daily's report that the girls were bent on taking part in the beauty pageant despite an edict by the National Fatwa Council prohibiting it. According to Minister in the Prime Minister's Department, Datuk Seri Jamil Khir Baharom, the fatwa explicitly states that participating, organising or contributing to any sort of beauty contest is haram (not permissible) and a sin for Muslims. ******************************************* A couple of readers have posted hate comments in Malaysia Today whacking me because I did not write anything regarding the 'canteen-in-the-toilet' issue. They have cursed me (with four-letter words, of course) for remaining silent. What is it that they want me to comment? There are already hundreds of comments including comments by leaders of political parties and even a statement by the Deputy Prime Minister himself. So what more do you need me to comment that has not already been said? I normally have to delete so many comments that are repetitive. They just parrot what someone else has already said. After ten or so duplicate comments I just delete the rest (which upsets many of those who do not see their comments published). But why do we need 100 comments that repeat 'the Malay headmaster should be sacked'? And that is another point. Everyone refers to him as 'the MALAY headmaster'. What has MALAY got to do with this issue? So why the emphasis on the fact that he is MALAY? I suppose the answer is obvious. It is because you want to turn this into a racial issue and the comments that say 'stupid Malay' is evidence of this. You regard this as a racial issue. Rafizi Ramli has made certain allegations against the Election Commission, allegations he made in Parliament. The EC Chairman has challenged Rafizi to repeat this allegation outside Parliament where the EC is able to defend itself if, according to the Chairman, he is man enough. I wonder whether Rafizi will do this because if the allegation is not true then, according to the law, Rafizi can be arrested and charged for criminal defamation, a crime of slandering a public servant. Rafizi may want to ponder on this one unless he has evidence to back up his allegation. I have also had to delete many comments from non-Muslim readers regarding the ban on Muslim girls/women from participating in beauty contests. This was a fatwah (decree) by the religious authorities, which was issued some time ago. The reason I deleted these comments is because we already have enough racial and religious disagreements in Malaysia as it is. So why do we want to add more fuel to the fire by whacking the 'stupid Muslims', 'narrow-minded Muslims', and so on, and just upset the Malays even more. To the Malays, this is in an 'internal matter' regarding Islam and involving the Muslims. So they would regard these nasty comments and the anti-Islam comments by the non-Muslims as an attempt to interfere in Islam. As what one reader commented: do the Malays tell the Chinese whether they should or should not eat pork? There are many things Muslims cannot do. They cannot eat and drink during the fasting month. They cannot indulge in extramarital sex. They cannot enter into a gay union. They cannot drink liquor. They cannot leave Islam. They cannot marry someone who is not a Muslim (although a Muslim man can marry a Jew or Christian woman). And so much more. So are the non-Muslims going to also whack Islam or the religious authorities for all these 'cannot do' as well? We talk about national interest. How would by allowing Malays to do all the things they are prohibited from doing we serve national interest? And why are the non-Malays so concerned about the lack of civil rights for the Malays? The Muslims do not welcome the 'contribution' of the non-Muslims in fighting for the rights of the Muslims. In fact, they would view it as a negative move: that is, an attempt to demonstrate how primitive Islam is by whacking these stringent dos and don'ts in Islam. The Muslims do not attempt to tell Christians, Hindus and Buddhists how to be proper Christians, Hindus and Buddhists. The Christians, Hindus and Buddhists should also not try to teach Muslims how to be better Muslims. And when you whack a Malay for any wrongdoing you love to add: "is this is what Islam teaches you?" When we whack a Chinese, Indian or whatever, we never add his religion to the issue. Why do we need to mention Islam and Muslim when we whack the Malay chap? And we blame Umno for the racial and religious divide. You may need to listen to what you say and wake up to the reality that you, too, are not innocent of contributing to this racial and religious divide. After all, does it not take two to tango? Malaysians are like prostitutes calling another woman a whore.
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