Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Najib not hunting bloggers, but Nazri may be!

malaysiakini informs us that Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang asked despairingly whether the Malaysian Parliament has become the world’s No 1 anti-bloggers Parliament.

He posed the question after UMNO’s top head kicker, Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department warned that the full force of the law (presumably UMNO’s law) would fall upon the blogger daring enough to belittle Islam and the King.

It’s the usual UMNO’s favourite mantra of agama, bangsa dan negara (though in RPK's case, it's minus the bangsa). The mantra is a convenient tool for UMNO leaders to use to intimidate and silence others, especially those who might have the dirt on them, and teflon-ise its own members (eg. the KJ refusal to apologise for his seditious accusation of Chinese Malaysians intending to ‘split’ the Malay community, which in turn was used to mask 9.2 million other reasons).

Lim said – hey, hang on a tic’ bib, didn’t DPM Najib just said something totally different from UMNO’s top hatchet man?

malaysiakini reported that
“on Monday, Najib said the government has not made a ‘special decision’ to clamp down on bloggers. Yesterday, Nazri, who is also de facto law minister, told the Dewan Negara that the time has come for action.”

I searched my BolehTalk archives and came up with Anwar Exposed - nah, don’t be hopeful, this isn’t the de facto Anwar.

This incident happened almost 3 years ago when a mysterious ‘Anwar’ caused such a stir on Screenshots with his very crude comparison of UMNO and Islam Hadhari? Then he held the email address of
tongsanchai@yahoo.com. The Cantonese words ‘tongsan chai’ means ‘China boy’ or ‘Chinaman’ depending on how one wants to term it, but 'Anwar' was as tongsanchai as I am Punjabi.

As we are all aware the kerfuffle started with the
Berita Harian accusing Screenshots of condoning such a seditious posting.

When UMNO and government ministers began to threaten Jeff Ooi of Screenshots with the ISA, Lim Kit Siang of the DAP waded into the fray,
accusing the prime minister’s 2Ks – KJ and Kalimullah Hassan (New Straits Times editor-in-chief, whom Berita Harian reports to) – of hounding the wrong person. He accused them of attempting to settle personal scores through the exploitation of an issue not authored by Jeff Ooi.

Though initially the police went after Jeff Ooi, the target was changed to poor little ‘Anwar’, with Energy, Water and Communications Minister (at that time) Dr Lim Keng Yaik
revealing that police has identified him as a 30-year old Muslim man, who worked as a laboratory technician in Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.

My BolehTalk partner, Mr X, found out that poor 'Anwar' was actually a far older bloke (then around 54) nearing retirement.

I asked of the dear Minister:
“Datuk, we’re all surprised that you and the Police would employ resources to the extent of identifying an obscene poster on Jeff Ooi’s Blog. Has he been a threat to national security or a notorious criminal?

If you remember, the public’s general preference and advice have been to ignore this vulgar idiot, rather than pursue him over a trifle.


In fact, Anwar regretted his impetuous actions and apologised for that on Malaysia-Today.

What now, Minister? Do we see him incarcerated for a moment of regretted foolishness – for daring to insult UMNO and UMNO’s Islamic values? Surely a free nation such as Malaysia needn’t behave like Communist China, North Korea or Iran!”

Sadly, Lim (the Minister not the DAP Grand Olde Man),
pressed for ‘Anwar’ to be charged. What a nasty mean minister, and a non-UMNO one at that too.

Mr X and I then wrote an open letter published in malaysiakini, appealing to the government to go easy on ‘Anwar’. Mr X took the trouble of comforting and supporting poor ‘Anwar’ who must have been terrified that the Communication Ministry in combination with the dreaded Police had traced and hunted him down. Mr X is like that, a rough diamond with his words but with a custard pie heart, soft and sweet.

In 'Anwar' Exposed (2)! I blogged:

But on 4 October the Sun newspaper reported that DPM Datuk Seri Najib Abdul Razak dismissed the Screenshot hoo-haa as sheer
nonsense. Datuk Seri Najib said the government wasn’t going to waste time countering every malicious allegation on the Internet (correctly so, if I may add).

Then yesterday we have Energy, Water & Communications Minister Lim Keng Yaik
stating that the investigation of ‘Anwar’ has been completed, and will be submitted to the AG by end of this month. malaysiakini headlines the article that Anwar may be prosecuted for incitement.

By pursuing the matter, basically the outcome of a vendetta between a mainsteam newspaper and a blog, to its unpleasant conclusion, has Lim KY deliberately disregarded DPM Datuk Najib’s decision on the matter? Has there been a disagreement between cabinet members, with ‘Anwar’ unfortunately caught in an
UMNO maelstorm?

I dug all this up to show that DPM Najib, like Dr Mahathir, seems, at least on the surface, to be consistent in his attitude in not giving too much attention to bloggers nor unduly worried about them.

But his ministers behaved otherwise. In the earlier case, it seemed to be Lim Keng Yaik who was far too enthusiastic in wanting to charge a middle-aged blogger while now UMNO’s top head kicker has declared war against bloggers.
And very déja vu-ish too!

Hey, who is in charge in the government?

6 comments:

  1. I'm afraid Najib doesn't get a free ride from me.

    He's a smooth-talking, cultured-sounding fraud.
    Nazri is just acting as a hatchet-man, same as with the Kinabatangan "bocor" guy. These blokes do the dirty cesspool work of UMNO, so the No. 1 and No. 2 boss can look Statesmanlike.

    But it doesn't fool me.

    Definition of a hatchet man

    ReplyDelete
  2. nazri, maybe, but 'bocor' man as dirty worker, nah, that's too far fetch - latter was just succumbing to his natural crude insensitive misogynist inclinations - he wa s adamn embarrassment to everyone except his equally crude twin, Cyclops

    ReplyDelete
  3. I HATE READING THE NEWSPAPER NOWADAYS. I only and usually read the business section, entertainment section etc. All except front lines and all that have to do with the Malaysian politics as I have given up hope on our country, our democracy and our politics. Nowadays I only read overseas news as they are more accurate and more liberal. Our country, manage by our government and politics seems sure that they are not going to change for the sake of globalization. They are not only not mature but more importantly not educated enough to run the country in these competitive times of globalization where the fastest and smartest of runners are the winners of this competitive world.

    When ever friends or family takes up the newspaper and debates on the frontline that this idiot politicians brings about, it makes me puke, frustrated, lost. How is it possible that superimposing photo’s of politicians a crime. If so, I’m afraid that most of my friends are at fault as we are use to discussing this matter openly as we believe our self to be educated and these photos were just for fun. You can call me an idiot but I know I’m not a criminal if I decide to superimpose some politician’s photos. Actually I need not superimpose any photos as there are ample videos on the internet on our politicians acting stupid and being stupid. My friends and my brother that are in overseas are NEVER coming back to Malaysia as they’ve notice what idiots are running the country and they are sure that this will not change.

    Fellow friends, family, brothers of Malaysia, I hope that what I’ve written might bring us all Malaysians together for this difficult times. Times where we are no more colonize by foreigners but a rather new kind of foreigners, our Malaysian politics. It is now very clear, that our politicians including Najib are not fit to run the country. The biggest threat to our country is no more the foreigners that we believe but rather politicians or the government that that are not educated enough or at all to understand the world in terms of economics and change. I know I have so much to give to the country and I’m sure my friends and family will be ale to bring our country to new heights but unfortunately, we are constantly suppressed by our own government.

    I’m so irritated about the current news that Najib has stated that the government is all out on bogglers. This is only my second time writing out articles like this as I usually don’t do this. I’m fed up of sitting by the corner and doing nothing. I’M NOT AFRAID OF THE GOVERNMENT ANYMORE!!!! Come catch me or all the bogglers that have done no wrong…Yes….bring Malaysia back to the Stone Age where democracy and freedom of speech does not exist. Great, because I’M SURE I’M DOING THE RIGHT THING as 20 years from now I will have the guts to tell my sons and daughters that I did the right thing and that the Stone Age government of Malaysia only realizes it 20 years later.

    Do the right thing for our children and our future generations to come!!

    Stop these irrational and ridiculous politicians of ours in exchange for globalization, progress, productivity and a future in the future. (Not Stone Age)

    The power is in our hands and not these politicians. We have a choice to choose prosperity and progress. Think carefully and wisely. Thank You.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ;-) I am going to just tolerate thsi political spam (thank goodness it's not a spam offering to introduce russian baabes to me) ;-)

    But "I’m so irritated about the current news that Najib has stated that the government is all out on bogglers."

    ... bloggers u mean, and where does it say that Najib stated the gomem is all out to get bloggers? OBviously u haven't even read my posting - Political spamming is just tolerable but lies aren't.

    ReplyDelete
  5. er... i received the above anonymous (10:41 PM) comments in my blog under the name 'patrick xee'. spam? but never mind lah, i tolerate it too as it sort of speak my sentiments. :)

    i would have agree with kittykat. maybe this sly najis guy just pretend pretend. of course he too wants what nazri wants.

    ReplyDelete
  6. yes, Lucia, maybe as kk46 said, Najib is using Nazri as his head kicker, but that's kk46's opinion.

    For our own integrity and self respect we have to distinguish what kk46 (or we) opined against what the spammer had lied about.

    ReplyDelete