Popular Tamil daily, Tamil Makkalosai, has been suspended for a week by none other than the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar himself for giving too much coverage of Pakatan Rakyat news.
With immediate effect, Tamil Makkalosai will not appear in the streets until next week, awaiting the fate of its appeal to the Home Minister.
Is this the first sign of repression and crackdown on human rights and the little space opening up in the printed media after the March 8 “political tsunami”?
It is clear that the decision to stop the publication of Tamil Makkalosai, which is still awaiting for its KDN this year, has got the “green-light” from the Cabinet meeting this morning.
Why did the Ministers, particularly from Umno and other Barisan Nasional component parties, particularly from the MIC, who have promised to end their subsidiary and subservient role in Cabinet , agreed to such a repressive measure as to immediately close down Tamil Makkalosai?
#1 by undergrad2 on Thursday, 17 April 2008 - 7:36 pm
I still maintain that religious values should not intrude on the private lives of citizens and Article 3 of our Constitution did not open the door to it!
I think our constitution allows us the choice of spending the evening with Rose Chan and her snake or the serpent, the apple and the Tree of Knowledge.
#2 by wtf2 on Thursday, 17 April 2008 - 7:50 pm
SHA is possibly one of the more intellectually challenged numbskull
#3 by waterfrontcoolie on Friday, 18 April 2008 - 12:37 am
It was proven beyond any doubt that controlling all the media could not cover all the one sided lies thrown to the Malaysian public, so I wonder why the need to ban any paper? Is it so that the Indians could only read those papers published by Samy?
It is really an act of futility by someone bankrupt of better ideas to serve the nation! Those who you could lead by the nose couldnot read anyway; and among those who can read and write they will prefer the newer media. So why waste the energy and creating indignation doing such superficial action?
It is sure sign of desperation in action by a party to whom we have had given 50 years of our time and life with an expectation that was eventually destroyed through arrogance and deceits. Nothing less!!
#4 by Jong on Friday, 18 April 2008 - 1:03 am
Like a battered dog still trying to tell, “I can still bark”!
#5 by Jong on Friday, 18 April 2008 - 1:04 am
yeah, a desperate act!
#6 by ktteokt on Friday, 18 April 2008 - 8:29 am
So it beats me what the 4 big posters with the words “BUAT KERJA” hanging on the outside of the KL Courts complex really mean. Does it imply that the civil servants and judges within this complex will only begin working NOW, as they were all SLEEPING previously? This amounts to a self confession of the incapabilities of these people within and if senior judges working within this building saw what I saw, they should demand that this STUPID posters be taken down immediately!!!!
#7 by alaneth on Sunday, 20 April 2008 - 2:00 am
The more the govt bans, the more the rakyat will want to see & hear fr the alternative media – internet.
If the govt didn’t ban Namewee, we would not know & we will not visit You-tube to watch.
When the BN govt thought they are smart confiscating Malaysiakini’s computers etc etc, Malaysiakini became famous & is a key media to help BN lose badly in this GE.
So BN – continue your mistakes, it won’t take long before you will be out of Parliment.
#8 by cheng on soo on Wednesday, 23 April 2008 - 10:46 am
Do those in authority realize that Tamil readers can still read Tamil newspapers from Tamilnadu, n elsewhere on Internet. Wonder what would those Tamil newspaper said about this ban?