Bangkok, November 30, 1999--- Prime
Minister Mahathir Mohamad's ruling coalition was returned to power in
Malaysia's November 29 general election, but the result will do little
to staunch criticism that his government uses its power to stifle dissent
and muzzle mainstream media.
The National Front, which has governed Malaysia since independence in 1957,
retained its overpowering two-thirds majority in parliament despite losing
some ground to the Islamic party PAS (Parti Islam SeMalaysia), which gained
control of the state of Terengganu and retained its hold on the state assembly
of Kelantan.
In the bitter election contest, the National Front's control of the media
gave Mahathir an overwhelming advantage. More than 85 percent of political
ads and news reports before the election were skewed toward the ruling coalition,
according to a watchdog group.
''The overall impression is that the Malaysian media, especially the television,
are completely and shamelessly on the side of the government,'' Muzaffar
Tate of Malaysian Elections Watch told the Associated Press in advance of
the election.
The result also points up the growing contrast between Malaysia and some
of its neighbors. Malaysia responded to the Asian economic crisis with capital
controls, a crackdown on political opposition and continued control over
the media. However, within the ten-nation Association of Southeast Asian
Nations, Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand all enjoy a free press
and relatively open societies with freewheeling public debate and multi-party
political systems.
The mandates enjoyed by the ruling parties in those countries are the result
of genuine debate in both the print and the electronic media. Whatever the
outcome of the Malaysian polls it will be impossible for Mahathir to erase
the fact that the result will seem tainted by the ruling party's control
over the press.
Indeed, rather than looking to his neighbors for vindication, in the run-up
to the election, Mahathir seemed to turn to authoritarian China for approval
of his policies. Chinese premier Zhu Rongji was in Kuala Lumpur the week
before the polls with blessings for Mahathir's approach to both information
and capital markets. Zhu said that foreign media criticism of Mahathir was
unfair. "I said to Mahathir that his policy was correct," Zhu said.
Mahathir, who has governed Malaysia since 1981 and is Asia's longest-serving
elected leader, seems likely to use election results as further justification
to continue his stranglehold on free expression.
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Bangkok, November 22, 1999--- Despite
more than a year of political unrest and widespread calls for greater
openness and press freedom, the Malaysian government is unlikely to change
the rules of the media game during the current snap election campaign.
And why should it? After all, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's National
Front coalition enjoys a tremendous edge by controlling virtually the
entire mainstream press.
Mahathir called the polls on November 12, leaving just 18 days of campaigning
before the November 29 general election. The government's overwhelming
ability to intimidate the mass media, dictate coverage and enforce a self-censorship
regime on most newsrooms raises doubt that Malaysia can enjoy free and
fair elections. 
And the turmoil that resulted from the September 1998 arrest and subsequent
prosecution of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim (on corruption
and sodomy charges) seems only to have stiffened Mahathir's resolve to
leave the media shackled.
Mahathir's dominant political party, the United Malays National Organization
(UMNO), and its coalition allies directly own or control the major newspapers,
radio and television stations in the country, making it virtually impossible
for alternative voices to gain widespread access to the public. Meanwhile,
government officials are taking full advantage of the tilted media playing
field to tout their own accomplishments. As one local journalist put it:
"Suddenly ministers who have never been quoted before in the media are
appearing and essentially campaigning using their government positions."
Bureaucratic barriers
The sweeping Printing Presses and Publications Act of 1984 allows the
government to shut down so-called subversive ublications and requires
publishers to renew printing licenses every year. The licenses dictate
the language each publication is allowed to use (English, Malay, Chinese
or Indian, to reflect the racial mix of the country) and the frequency
with which they are allowed to publish.. On May 3 of this year, World
Press Freedom Day, 581 Malaysian journalists signed a petition calling
for the repeal of the act. The petition was presented to Deputy Prime
Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi who told the journalists, "I shall read
it. I will let you know."
They are still waiting to hear from him.
Independent journalists and publishers have found it nearly impossible
to secure licenses to operate daily newspapers under the act, especially
since a 1987 crackdown in which Mahathir shuttered several newspapers
and moved Malaysia sharply to the right. There are a few small, independent
weekly tabloids, and one major political party newspaper, Harakah, the
party organ of PAS, the Islamic party, has mushroomed in popularity since
Anwar's arrest by publishing opposition-oriented stories. But despite
its success, Harakah is a party organ rather than an independent newspaper.
Forget TV
Meanwhile, critical voices are virtually excluded from electronic media.
There are two private television stations, but both have close ties to
the government and are unlikely to give much coverage to the opposition.
And even before elections were called, the government announced that the
opposition would have no access to the state-owned Radio Television Malaysia,
the country's oldest TV station. Speaking in July, Deputy Information
Minister Suleiman Mohamed said opposition parties had been allowed to
use state TV channels to voice their policies during past elections but
often broadcast "disturbing" material. Suleiman suggested that opposition
parties wanting access to television could buy a station of their own
and apply for a broadcast license.
At times, the government's efforts to shut out opposition voices has taken
on absurdist tones. Entrepreneur Development Minister Mustapa Mohamed
told Parliament that his ministry would revoke the licenses of taxi drivers
who criticize the government. Mustapa said cabbies had been warned not
to play tape recordings of anti-government speeches or display pictures
of opposition leaders in their vehicles, according to the official Bernama
news agency.
"Don't expect the media to be fair," wrote journalist Steven Gan in an
editorial published Wednesday in Malaysiakini.com,
a new alternative news website launched this week in Kuala Lumpur . "[There
is] not a ghost of a chance. The media is notorious in distorting news
-- sometimes it is subtle, at other times, more blatant. It is especially
true now that the elections are around the corner."
Democracy online?
Gan,who formerly worked in the mainstream press, is providing alternative
news coverage online, taking advantage of the fact that Malaysia has few
restrictions on the Internet because of Mahathir's vision of turning the
country into a center for high-tech research and investment. But Gan says
it will take years before the Internet can be an effective mass medium
to counter the power of the major media. "Like it or not, the Internet
is only getting through to a minority of the voters," said Gan. "A huge
majority still depend on mass media for their news. Which is why the elections
will be unfair."
Many journalists who work in this environment are frustrated by the compromises
they have to make. In the aftermath of the Anwar affair, a large number
of reporters reportedly left their jobs at major dailies to protest restrictions
placed on them by pro-government supervisors. A senior editor at a major
daily said recently, "For me it is always a battle to get a story into
the paper. You have always to think about political considerations."
Many journalists fear their phones are tapped; most refuse to be quoted
on the subject of press freedom or working conditions at their papers.
"We are all afraid of losing our jobs if we go too far," said one reporter.
"It is not worth the risk."
Saint Murray's passion
For those who do take the risk, there is always the cautionary example
of Murray Hiebert. In September, Malaysia became the only Commonwealth
country in half a century to jail a reporter for contempt of court when
Hiebert, at that time Kuala Lumpur bureau chief for the Far Eastern Economic
Review, was sent to prison for four weeks as a result of a story he wrote
that was critical of the Malaysian judiciary. The ordeal of the two year
trial and appeals process -- during which Hiebert was barred from leaving
the country -- made him Malaysia's press freedom poster child.
"Why are they doing this?" Hiebert asked rhetorically one afternoon in
his office before he lost his appeal. "I think they want to send a message
to reporters not to go too far in this country." [CLICK
HERE for Hiebert's exclusive essay for CPJ.]
This oppressive media environment makes it almost certain that the ruling
coalition will be returned to power on November 29 and that Mahathir,
Asia's longest-serving elected leader, will continue to dictate the direction
his country will take. Until now, Mahathir's legitimacy has been based
on his ability to guarantee political and economic stability. Papering
over Malaysia's ever-widening political cracks by muzzling the press will
help neither the prime minister's mandate nor Malaysia's future prosperity.
A. Lin Neumann is the Asia program consultant at CPJ.
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Washington, DC, November 22, 1999 --- I've
become quite an expert on Malaysian tourist spots over the past two years.
That's because a local judge sentenced me to three months in prison for
"scandalizing the court" in a magazine article that I wrote in 1997. While
my appeal wound its way through the Malaysian legal maze, I was forced
to remain within the borders of peninsular Malaysia.
My problems began in early 1997 when I wrote an article in the Far
Eastern Economic Review, a news weekly published in Hong Kong by Dow
Jones & Co, about a mother who was suing the International School of Kuala
Lumpur for $2.4 million. She mounted the suit because fellow students
had kicked her 17-year-old son off a debating team for alleged cheating.
I used this case as an example to demonstrate that Malaysia had become
almost as litigious as the United States.
I paid a heavy price for that piece: on October 11, 1999, I finally got
my passport back after completing 27 months under "country arrest" and
30 days in prison. 
In many Commonwealth countries, including Malaysia, private citizens can
bring contempt of court charges against other individuals. In my case,
the plaintiff was the wife of an Appeal Court judge. She filed her case
with a High Court judge who found me guilty of contempt of court and sentenced
me to three months in prison. I appealed the verdict, but had to wait
two years for a hearing, during which time the courts held my passport
as a condition of bail. In the end, the Appeal Court upheld my conviction,
but reduced the sentence to six weeks. Prison officials cut my term by
one third for good behavior.
Although my case was unique, it has implications for other journalists
working in Malaysia. The sentencing judge stated quite clearly that he
was making an example of me because of his frustration with previous criticisms
of the Malaysian legal system. "In my view, for far to long there appears
to be unabated contemptuous attacks by and through publications or the
media on the judiciary," the judge said. "It is high time that our judiciary
shows its abhorrence to such contemptuous conduct . . ."
IÕm not the only journalist in Malaysia who has faced legal intimidation
because of his work. A colleague from The Asian Wall Street Journal,
which like the Review is owned by Dow Jones, is being sued for
millions of dollars for alleged comments he is said to have made about
the Malaysian judiciary in an interview with International Commercial
Litigation, a magazine published in London. In two other suits, The
Asian Wall Street Journal is being sued by businessmen close to the
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. One of them is the prime minister's son,
Mirzan Mahathir. The damages sought total several hundred million dollars.
And the threats don't end there. A local journalist with The Star,
a local newspaper owned by a Chinese political party in Malaysia's ruling
coalition, was threatened with a contempt of court suit when she wrote
about one of the law suits facing Dow Jones. The message for journalists
is hard to miss: you risk bankruptcy and prison if you write about political
and economic developments in Malaysia. Is it any wonder that Malaysian
editors and journalists increasingly censor themselves to avoid lawsuits?
Fortunately, Malaysian prisons aren't nearly as violent as US prisons,
or as overcrowded and run down as jails in many developing countries.
The most shocking thing for me was the abrupt loss of freedom. You have
to struggle to keep up hope when the prison door clinks shut behind you.
And it isn't easy to learn to sit on the floor stripped to the waist half
a dozen times a day while waiting to be counted by cocky guards, or to
get used to using the doorless toilet when you get sick. But it would
have been much harder for me endure the ordeal if the other inmates hadn't
adopted me into the prison family.
On top of that, I was lucky that my jail term was relatively short. Still
it was long enough for me to reflect on the value of press freedom and
freedom of speech. I also gained new appreciation for those who have struggled
to protect these freedoms. A few days after I was jailed I was taken to
meet the prison director who let me watch while he looked through my file.
It contained copies of protest statements by CPJ, Amnesty International,
President Clinton and others. The fact that the world was watching helped
guarantee that I had a relatively easy stay.
When I walked out of prison on October 11, my heart ached for the roughly
100 journalists around the world who couldn't enjoy my new-found freedom.
I also knew I would never again take the work of groups like CPJ for granted.
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