Free Speech Is Now Under Attack In Malaysia!

Wait a minute, what the fuck am I saying? Free speech has always been under attack in Malaysia. Its always been attacked by those wishing to hold onto power. Its always been attached by those who can't stand others talking about whats on their mind. Its always been attacked by those who claim they champion for free speech... but... when *BANG*... someone says something else they don't like, its threats and Sedition Acts for him.

In the past weeks, we had two internets (sic) personalities who went for lengthy interviews with the police; Nathaniel Tan, and Raja P. Kamaruddin. Unfortunately, it wasn't for the position of the topdog Inspector General of Police post which I'm sure they would do better at, despite their lack of experience inside the police force, but their tons of experience with the police would make up for it.

New IGP R.P. Kamaruddin contemplates re-investigating the "Strange Case of Muhammad son of Muhammad And His Sack of Cash", on the Malaysian side(at least my photoedit skills are on par with Tian Chua's)

Raja Petra spent 8 hours being questioned, while Nathaniel got several days detention in a police lockup. All over their websites. Did they make a call for an asassination of some bigwig? Did they threaten to have someone killed? I think we all know the answer.

The government and its minions knows it cannot seriously control the internet, especially when you have hundreds of angry bloggers banging away on their keyboards to update their US-based websites. So it arrests or sues a few of them from time to time, hoping that would scare the rest to shut the fuck up.

Unfortunately for them, and fortunately for we plebians and rakyat-marhein, that only had the opposite result of enraging the rest. Raja Petra's website, Malaysia Today-dot-net was off the web occasionally today and the last few days. But it wasn't because it was shutdown by the guvment, as some folks have worried about. Ironicly, this crackdown had caused many many many folks with Internets (sic) connection to pay R.P.'s website a little visit. Ditto for Mr. Nathaniel too. Many many many folks... to the point that sometimes, the server couldn't cope with the traffic.

Some weren't even regular readers of M-Today, but thanks to Mat Taib's report against R.P., that all changed. So Raja Petra, I guess you have someone to thank for increasing the hit counter on your site. No need to see him in hell...


Meanwhile, this August or whenever, I know who to vote for this coming election...