VZCZCXRO5779
PP RUEHCHI RUEHDT RUEHHM RUEHNH
DE RUEHKL #1218/01 2111109
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 301109Z JUL 07
FM AMEMBASSY KUALA LUMPUR
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9736
INFO RUCNASE/ASEAN MEMBER COLLECTIVE
RHHMUNA/HQ USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
RHHMUNA/USCINCPAC HONOLULU HI

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 KUALA LUMPUR 001218 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR EAP/MTS AND DRL -- SARAH BUCKLEY 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 07/30/2017 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM SOCI KPAO MY
SUBJECT: VIRTUAL LIMITS: MALAYSIA ATTEMPTS TO REIN IN BLOGGERS 
 
REF: KUALA LUMPUR 1155 - POLICE DETAIN ANWAR AIDE 
 
Classified By: Classified By: Political Section Chief Mark D. Clark for 
 reasons 1.4 (b and d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) Bloggers fear the recent police actions against two 
prominent online political commentators, Nathaniel Tan and 
Raja Petra Kamaruddin, presage a Government of Malaysia (GOM) 
crackdown on the freedoms of speech and the press in 
cyberspace.  GOM leaders and officials from the dominant 
United Malays National Organization (UMNO) justified the 
moves as necessary to check irresponsible bloggers who incite 
racial and religious hatred.  The GOM has announced its 
readiness to use the Internal Security Act, the Sedition Act, 
and Section 121b of the Penal Code against bloggers, and 
there is some discussion of introducing new legislation to 
plug legal loopholes.  Prominent political leaders including 
the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister are warning 
bloggers and cyber-activists they are not immune from the 
law, and will face prosecution for transgressions such as 
insulting Islam and the King, and inciting the population 
through "lies" on websites.  Opposition leaders and human 
rights NGOs are condemning the police actions and public 
threats, stating these are politically motivated and meant to 
instill "a news blackout" and squelch dissent prior to the 
anticipated general elections.  The Internet is Malaysia's 
last bastion of press freedom and the arena for incessant 
rumor-mongering among the country's elites.  Opposition 
parties and government critics rely heavily on the Internet 
because the GOM controls access to traditional media outlets 
to favor UMNO and the ruling National Front (Barisan 
Nasional, BN).  The GOM clearly has fired a warning shot into 
cyberspace in an effort to rein in outspoken critics.  End 
Summary. 
 
First salvo fired against cyber-activists 
----------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) The GOM fired its opening salvo on Internet 
bloggers on July 13 when it arrested Nathaniel Tan, a 
People's Justice Party (PKR) webmaster and blogger, after 
corruption allegations against Deputy Internal Security 
Minister Johari Baharom were posted by a third party on Tan's 
website (reftel).  When police detained Tan, they reportedly 
denied him access to his lawyer, the chance to inform his 
family of his arrest, and concealed his whereabouts while 
processing his arrest.  P. Uthayakumar, a coordinator for the 
NGO Police Watch, spotted Mr. Tan when police took him before 
a magistrate and notified Mr. Tan's lawyer of his 
whereabouts.  Tan, released on bail after four days, was held 
for suspicion of "wrongful communication of an official 
secret."  While police reportedly questioned Tan regarding 
information on the Johari corruption story, Tan's lawyer, R. 
Sivarasa, stated, "I want to go on record (to say) this 
detention is politically motivated." 
 
¶3.  (U) Lim Kit Siang, Parliamentary Opposition Leader and 
member of the Democratic Action Party (DAP), condemned the 
"secretive circumstances in the first seven hours of Tan's 
arrest".  He also called it "a scandal which speaks of a 
police which has yet to fully accept that the first principle 
of policing in a democratic system must be policing for the 
people and not policing to serve the government leaders of 
the day."  Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, the 
human rights NGO Suaram, the Malaysian Bar Council, the 
Center for Independent Journalism, and the World Organization 
Against Torture (OMCT) all condemned Mr. Tan's arrest while 
The Sun newspaper described his arrest as "politically 
motivated." 
 
UMNO Takes On Cyber Gadfly 
-------------------------- 
 
¶4.  (U) UMNO Information Chief Muhammad Muhammad Taib filed a 
police report on July 23 (11 days after Mr. Tan's arrest) 
against the political website Malaysia Today and its 
outspoken webmaster Raja Petra.  A cousin to the current 
Sultan of Selangor, Raja Petra set up his website in 2004 and 
it is now one of the most popular news websites in the 
country.  About 30 UMNO leaders accompanied the Information 
Chief when he filed the police report.  He claimed the 
postings and articles were disrespectful to the King and 
Islam, and had the potential to "create unrest in the country 
and strike fear in the people."  The UMNO Information Chief 
urged the police to take swift action, and stated the 
portal's contents could undermine unity and corrupt young 
minds "to think that there are no rules and sensitivities 
governing articles and that anyone can write on any matter in 
the name of individual freedom." 
 
¶5.  (U) Several senators and defacto Law Minister Nazri Abdul 
Aziz joined the chorus in the subsequent days.  Nazri stated 
the government would take legal action against bloggers who 
flagrantly belittle Islam or the King using three laws:  the 
Internal Security Act (ISA), the Sedition Act, and Section 
121b of the Penal Code (which relates to offenses against the 
King, Sultans, or Governors that entails life imprisonment if 
convicted).  He cited as an example a blog entry belittling 
Islam in which the writer described the religion as, "a big 
lie fabricated by Arabs who had put a huge rock (the Kaabah) 
in the middle of the desert."  The Minister claimed the 
comment was not only ill mannered but could provoke anger 
among Muslims.  Nazri also stated the government was 
considering formulating new laws allowing it to monitor and 
act against offending bloggers, and closing  any legal 
loopholes.  He stressed that the proposed legislation's 
intent is not to strangle the freedom of the Internet but to 
put a stop to the "freedom to lie in the blogosphere."  The 
Minister explained, "We want blogs to be clean, a place to 
obtain accurate information, a reference point for honest 
opinion, not a platform to abuse and slander people." 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak, who has been 
savaged in Malaysia's blogs for corruption and alleged 
tie-ins to the Altantuya murder scandal, explained to the 
public June 23 that UMNO Information Chief's filing of the 
police report against Raja Petra did not signal the GOM made 
a "special decision" to clamp down on bloggers.  He added, 
"everyone must be aware that there are laws in this country." 
 However, the DPM's comments regarding bloggers were harsher 
later that night while speaking at the Malaysian Press 
Institute Press Awards.  There, he noted the government was 
deeply troubled by the growth of "irresponsible" alternative 
media.  He explained, "In the name of freedom, these websites 
allow the broadcast of slander, lies, and swearing, the use 
of harsh, degrading language and racial slurs without regard 
for the reader or those concerned."  He stressed the 
government's tolerance of antigovernment positions and 
criticisms on the Internet, but "we are very concerned about 
statements that insult religion and reek of racism."  He 
warned that webmasters and web journalists are not exempt 
from laws and the GOM "will not permit any party to disturb 
the nation's harmony and cause unease among the community." 
 
Police Summon Raja Petra 
------------------------ 
 
¶7.  (U) Raja Petra, not known for his subtlety, responded 
immediately to the UMNO Information Chief with a flaming 
article entitled, "See you in hell Muhammad son of Muhammad," 
which also recalled prior corruption charges against his 
detractor and highlighted Raja Petra's family ties to 
royalty.  On July 25, police called in Raja Petra for 8 hours 
of questioning before releasing him.  Raja Petra claimed that 
UMNO's police report and his questioning was part of "an 
agenda to clamp down on blogs before the coming general 
election in a move to black out news." 
 
¶8.  (U) Many of the same opposition politicians and activists 
who rallied behind Nathanial Tan raised further alarm over 
Raja Petra's predicament.  Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang 
stated the police report against Raja Petra was an attempt to 
clampdown on "criticism, dissent, and expose (sic) of abuses 
of power and corrupt practices in the run-up to the coming 
general election."  He added that the government should not 
use criminal laws "to arrest, intimidate, and silence any 
one."  Understandably, the blogging community immediately 
came out in support of Raja Petra.  They claim the police 
report against Malaysia Today and Nathaniel Tan's earlier 
arrest represent a GOM attempt to intimidate other bloggers 
and clampdown on "press freedom in cyberspace."  Dr. Toh Kim 
Win, a Penang Gerakan state cabinet minister, was the only 
prominent government leader to voice support for the blogging 
community.  He said UMNO's police report (against Raja Petra) 
represents a "growing trend towards stifling dissent in our 
country."  He added, "These trends, if not stopped, will 
further erode the democratic space, which is already limited, 
in our country."  He urged the government to promote not only 
economic development, but also human rights.  With no 
apparent sense of irony, former Prime Minister Mahathir, 
himself once a champion of muzzling the press, described the 
government's attempt to clampdown on bloggers as an exercise 
in futility, one that wouldn't stop information flowing over 
the Internet. 
 
PM Weighs In, Finds Himself Subject of Police Complaint 
--------------------------------------------- ---------- 
 
¶9.  (SBU) Upon returning from his honeymoon travel, Prime 
Minister Abdullah Badawi weighed in, warning on July 29 that 
Malaysia's laws would not spare those who spread "lies" on 
the Internet.  Abdullah added bloggers and Internet posters 
"do not have the freedom to do whatever they like." 
Responding to Raja Petra's claim police cannot charge him 
under Malaysian law because his site is registered overseas, 
the Prime Minister said, "It is not for them (bloggers) to 
claim that they are immune from the law simply because their 
websites are hosted overseas where they have the right to say 
anything." 
 
¶10. (U) In an ironic tit-for-tat act, opposition DAP member 
Ronnie Liu Tian Khiew filed a police report regarding a 
"seditious posting" on the Prime Minister's official website, 
originally posted on November 14, 2005.  The posting conveyed 
anti-Chinese sentiments.  Raja Petra reported the filing on 
his website, adding he expected the police to respond to the 
filing and question the Prime Minister within two days, as 
they had done with him.  The postings were removed on July 30 
after they were made public and a police report filed. 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Until recently, the GOM generally has refrained 
from actively policing political content the Internet, in 
part out of a pledge made to foster development of the 
Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) and the Internet market in 
Malaysia.  Beginning in 2004, the GOM began making statements 
on the need to introduce "cyber laws to control the 
Internet," but it made little use of the regulatory authority 
over on-line speech vested in the Communications and 
Multimedia Commission.  In December 2006, Kong Cho Ha, Deputy 
Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, stated 
Malaysia may introduce tough Internet laws to control 
bloggers and prevent them from spreading "disharmony, chaos, 
seditious material and lies" on their websites.  Early in 
2007, some senior Embassy contacts alluded to internal GOM 
discussions on ways to rein in Internet news reporting and 
bloggers in particular.  In January 2007, Prime Minister 
Abdullah Badawi said although government policy is not to 
censor the Internet, "bloggers are bound by laws on 
defamation, sedition, and other limits of speech."  The Prime 
Minister's comment referred to the defamation lawsuit filed 
by the News Straits Times (NST), an English language 
newspaper owned by UMNO, against Jeff Ooi and Ahirudin Atan 
(aka Rocky), another prominent blogger, for their blogs and 
their readers' comments regarding the newspaper's editors' 
roles in misrepresenting facts, publishing a caricature of 
the Prophet Muhammad, and alleged plagiarism by its 
journalists.  Given UMNO's control over the NST, the paper's 
lawsuit is seen by many as the GOM's first move against 
cyber-activists and bloggers. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶12.  (C) With the mainstream media -- television, print and 
radio -- largely under the thumb of UMNO and the ruling 
National Front, and a number of important national topics 
ruled out of bounds, including most recently the "Islamic 
state" controversy, the Internet is the remaining bastion for 
wide ranging criticism of the government and discussion of 
otherwise taboo political subjects.  The Internet is also the 
focus of incessant rumor-mongering among the country's 
elites, honed to a fine art by the likes of Raja Petra who 
kept the milling turning, often without any solid information 
to back up his sensational reports.  Opposition figures, 
largely unable to access the mainstream press, rely heavily 
on the Internet to reach Malaysia's computer-savvy upper 
class, while realizing that this information does not readily 
penetrate down to the grassroots.  The Internet has helped 
government critics fan corruption stories, aided Mahathir in 
his ill-fated challenge against PM Abdullah last year, and 
kept alive allegations of DPM Najib's links to the Altantuya 
murder case. 
 
¶13.  (C) The GOM clearly has fired a warning shot into 
cyberspace in an effort to rein in outspoken critics ahead of 
the impending elections; government pressure on the blogging 
community through complaints and police actions seems very 
much tied to the preparation of the election ground.  Senior 
government officials and UMNO leaders have made clear that 
the sniping from cyberspace rankles deeply, and UMNO has a 
strong interest in weakening the opposition's electronic 
platform at this particular time.  Even if this does not 
evolve into a real crackdown, the government warnings and 
criminal investigations of Tan and Raja Petra could send a 
chill through Malaysia's boisterous Internet community that 
will temper some voices.  We doubt, however, that others will 
allow themselves to be silenced and the GOM, like other 
governments, will find the Internet difficult to constrain. 
The Embassy supports freedom of speech on the Internet 
through active and carefully calibrated public affairs 
programming, including through expert U.S. speakers and 
support to seminars, and we seek to engage government and 
opinion leaders behind the scenes to preserve Internet space 
for the broad range of Malaysian viewpoints. 
LAFLEUR