Suara Keadilan: The Malay Politic's Ultimate Game Daim driving up talk of an Anwar-Najib

Tragedy is a morality tale. Only Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi’s conscience knows the truth about the inevitable conflicts between kama and dharma limits that were transgressed. It is not easy to navigate between one’s duty to oneself and the duty to another. Even if one doesn’t transgress physically, one does so in one’s heart. Desire is infuriating and this, alas, is the bewildering human condition.

The issue of media freedom is today beyond any form of debate. Article guarantees freedom of expression. In Malaysia — unlike in some other jurisdictions — free speech in terms of freedom of Press, is not a separate right and it is included in the larger ambit of freedom of expression. And those who drafted the Constitution, created an exception.

The exception was, that whereas in relation to other fundamental rights, you had a general exception of what is reasonable, could be restricted on the fundamental right — the generalised restriction was not there in the context of free speech. So, free speech was given a more elevated status, and you only define 6 or 7 circumstances on account of which there could be a restriction on free speech. So, a general concept that there is a reasonable restriction against free speech, is no longer a valid consideration.

This preeminent position which has been given, has now to be utilised by media with great circumspection. This is particularly because media now forms the eyes and ears as far as citizens are concerned, it also has a very powerful impact.What are the threats today? Traditionally, a newspaper or a channel could be banned. The days of bans are over. You can censor a medium; in fact, part of the fear that was created during Emergency was on account of the censorship of newspapers itself. But today, technology has made censorship an impossibility. So assuming there was Emergency imposed today under Article , the impact of censorship would be nil. Because the satellite itself defies geographical boundaries — emails don’t honour it, the fax machine doesn’t honour it.

And therefore, what had to be secretly distributed as Emergency literature, would today be freely available all over the country. And the more you ban, greater would be the curiosity to access that material! So the threats really are no longer such great external threats. You may have odd cases where the state itself takes extra interest in setting up its own medium. But the threats that are coming now — i would use the word “challenges” rather than “threats” — are within, on account of the nature of the medium itself.

As far as the sense of responsibility is concerned, it is difficult to define this. Justice Ravindran mentioned that the government would try and discipline those who are outside the scope of the self-regulatory mechanism. find it extremely difficult, because it may have its own pitfalls if the government got into the business of starting to discipline media organisations. would be more comfortable if viewers or readers decided to disapprove if they find media way off the mark. Rather than government step in and tell media what to report and what not to report, i’d rather that viewers — just with the power of the remote in their hands — decide to switch to something else.

Home Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi his shallow mind he thinks that the sole purpose of the printing laws us to shield the ruling elite from criticism, even to the extent of suppressing press freedom which is the foundation of democracy? Why should he and the ruling elite be so paranoid? What can the Bangla, the Nepalis and the Burmese do? They can't vote can they? They don't even have C4 to blow up anybody right? With so many policemen and Rela personnels watching the opposition and dissidents so efficiently and effectively, why is he so scared?

'Virgins checked by Daim's personal doctor'

A text-heavy, one-minute-forty-second clip posted on video sharing site YouTube by an account owner called WikiLeaks Malaysia does not show any scenes of the alleged misconduct, but promises that a soon-to-come video will show interviews with Daim's "victims", who supposedly came from Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.

The clip also claimed that US$10,000 was paid to those who were virgins, who were checked by Daim's personal doctor.

Daim himself may be coming with 'dirty hands' and Anwar offers to tesify

The mainstream media has been attacking Daim with allegations of corruption, and have even given coverage to opposition leader, Anwar, who had said on January 18 that he would assist the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) in its probe against the former finance minister.

His comments were given wide play in the government-owned media, traditionally known to be hostile to members of the opposition coalition, Pakatan Rakyat (PR).