Kit Siang: Print media treats me like a non-person

 

Iskandar Puteri MP Lim Kit Siang claimed that newspapers ignored his court victory over former attorney-general Mohamed Apandi Ali.

"I would have been blazoned on the front pages in printed media... had Apandi won his RM10 million defamation suit against me, but the report was blacked out when I won.

"I was a non-person except for adverse news before May 2018, and I have again become a non-person after February 2020.

"This is an indication of the state of press freedom in Malaysia, which has nothing to do with whether there are more readers online or printed media," said Lim.

Malaysiakini cannot verify if Lim's claims are true. Preliminary checks revealed that Utusan Malaysia and The Star reported the trial's outcome in their online editions.

On May 23, the Kuala Lumpur High Court dismissed Apandi's defamation suit against Lim over the latter's article titled "Dangerous fallacy to think Malaysia's on the road to integrity", which was published by Malaysiakini.

Apandi claimed that the allegedly libellous words in the article implied that he was involved in crime and abetted in the 1MDB affair by abusing his power as the then attorney-general.

Apart from aggravated and exemplary damages, Apandi sought RM10 million in general damages and an injunction to prevent Lim from repeating the defamatory words.

Judge Azimah Omar ruled that Lim succeeded in justifying his qualified privileges when making those statements as the 1MDB scandal involves criminality, illegalities, social and economic repercussions to the nation's economy, as well as the morality of the nation's top leaders and agencies.

"It is well within the rakyat's rights - not just the defendant (Lim) as an MP - interest and duty to voice out their dismay and enmity, especially when all the avenues (of complaint) have been exhausted and only for the uproar to fall on deaf ears.

"The defendant voiced his thoughts to the public as he exercises responsible journalism," she said and ordered Apandi to pay RM80,000 in costs to Lim.

The judge ruled that Lim had justification in urging Apandi to answer why he had absolved Najib Abdul Razak of the 1MDB affair in 2016, especially after the former premier had been convicted by the Kuala Lumpur High Court in 2020 in the RM42 million SRC International Sdn Bhd corruption case and the conviction was later upheld by the Court of Appeal. - Mkini