Shahbudin: It’s a guess on next media to be savaged

The government has set the tone through the MCMC having a meeting with online news portals on the Sarawak Report.

KUALA LUMPUR: The guessing game has begun in earnest, notes a political analyst, on the next target the authorities concerned want to savage among the media after the action by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to block the Sarawak Report and the Home Ministry’s suspension of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily.

This follows, said Shahbudin Husin, a meeting that the MCMC had with the Editors of several online news portals after blocking the Sarawak Report. “They were reminded not to carry any news from the Sarawak Report as it had been blocked. The MCMC itself admitted that it doesn’t know whether the Sarawak Report’s coverage of 1MDB was inaccurate. It seems that it was blocked in case it was inaccurate.”

“In the era of the internet, it appears that the government wants the people to rely only on TV3, Utusan and the government media to get information.”

If the government wants the media to stop criticizing 1MDB, then by the same token, said Shahbudin, the government media cannot be allowed at the same time to defend the scandal-ridden company. “Let the Special Task Force on 1MDB do its work and then the media can report their findings for the public to decide.”

The actions taken against the Sarawak Report and The Edge publications are a backward step, added the analyst, and only taken because of the inability of the government to explain itself and it had to fall back on brute force to deal with its critics and protect itself. “Even Nazir Abdul Razak, the Prime Minister’s brother, and Najib-supporter Chandra Muzaffar, described the action by the authorities against certain media as harsh and unwarranted.”

The people’s reading of the situation, said the analyst, is that the government has something to hide and wants to keep the people from knowing the truth. “The consensus of public opinion is that the government has a lot of explaining to do and if The Edge had been inaccurate in its coverage of the 1MDB scandal, and other related issues, the onus is on the government to point it out and explain.”

What has made the Najib administration’s position untenable is the fact that The Edge was willing to be hauled to Court to explain itself and moreover had handed over all documents in its possession on 1MDB to Bank Negara and the police. “Given these facts, what’s the excuse for the Home Ministry to suspend two The Edge publications for three months?”

The high-handedness of the Home Ministry’s action, said the analyst, can be seen from the fact that other online news portals, and other media, and the social media as well have been carrying the same reports as The Edge and on the same issues. It’s not known, he said, why The Edge has been singled out for persecution, if not prosecution. “What’s certain is that the Home Ministry’s action against The Edge had something to do with its coverage of 1MDB.”

The “errant” media’s penultimate act was a report on 1MDB’s dealings with PetroSaudi International (PSI), allegedly a scam by controversial Penang businessman Jho Low, to fleece the people of USD1.83 billion. “The Edge was willing to be hauled to Court on this report.”

“It said, in standing up for its constitutional rights, that the report was based on documents and thousands of emails which it believed was authentic.”

“It was hardly six years ago that Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak had conceded that the era of the ‘government knowing all’ had ended and the emphasis now was on openness, moderation and an appreciation of the social media,” said Shahbudin. “The inability of Najib to explain the 1MDB scandal and his determination to hang onto power by all means possible has made him do an about-turn from the declarations six years ago.”