The report which apparently got The Heat into trouble. – The Malaysian Insider pic, December 21, 2013.The old restrictive regime is back and it is going to get worse, say opposition politicians and activists, following the suspension of The Heat weekly by the Home Ministry this week.
They said with nearly five years before the next elections, Putrajaya is becoming increasingly intolerant of public criticism and the recent crackdown is expected to get worse to quell the rising public outrage over higher costs due to the rise in toll and electricity rates.
“It is going to get worse in the coming years,” Subang MP Sivarasa Rasiah told The Malaysian Insider.
“It’s now being shown that this was all electioneering. It’s just to get votes,” he said, adding when the votes did not come, Umno took off its mask of openness and went back to its old habit of quieting dissent.
Sivarasa said the Najib administration also did not appear to be serious about dealing with government wastage and its own corruption.
So as civil society, the media and Pakatan Rakyat continue to draw attention to this disconnect – between what the administration demands of Malaysians and which they themselves will not do. Expect the muzzle to be put on more and more people.
As Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) co-founder Eric Paulsen pointed out, The Heat, was apparently suspended because it ran a story on the alleged misuse of public funds by the top leadership.
“In other countries this is legitimate criticism. Najib wants to engage people on social media, he extols the virtues of the Internet yet he can’t accept criticism.”
Paulsen said the suspension of The Heat was just the latest in a series of actions that reflect the return of the heavy-handed approach of the old Umno way of doing things under former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad.
After the May 5 general elections, the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) government, through the police and the Home Ministry, took several Pakatan Rakyat (PR) politicians to court for organising rallies to protest alleged discrepancies in the election.
On October 4, news portal Malaysiakini had said that Home Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi had attempted to intimidate its journalist at a press conference.
A month later, online columnist Mariam Mokhtar was similarly threatened by the nation’s top cop Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar over an article she wrote about the police’s handling of Siti Aishah Abdul Wahab, who was allegedly a slave in London for 30 years.
PKR’s Sivarasa said The Heat’s suspension also showed that Najib was never serious about the reforms he had promised in his Malaysia Day speech last year.
These included amendments to restrictive laws such as the Printing Presses and Publications Act and getting rid of detention without trial by abolishing the Internal Security Act.
“But he brought back detention without trial by passing the Prevention of Crime Act. So right now Umno’s true colours are starting to show and what they talked about last year comes to nothing.”
The administration’s own lack of conviction in the reforms is also shown in the suspension itself. The ministry apparently did not follow its own new rule for suspending publications.
Centre for Independent Journalism executive officer Masjaliza Hamzah points out that the new rule provided that any publication would be given a right to be heard before action was taken against it.
This new rule was part of the reforms introduced in the Printing Presses and Publications Act last year.
It was reported that The Heat was issued a show-cause letter with a time frame to reply.
It appeared the ministry suspended the weekly’s permit even before it had a chance to reply.
“This action is not very encouraging. It seems Ahmad Zahid is going against the reforms introduced last year,” Sivarasa said.
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