SHAH ALAM, 22 Dec: The suspension of the weekly newspaper The Heat by the Federal Government goes against the pledge made by the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Razak, to have media freedom in this country.
The former Chief Editor of the New Straits Times Press Group, Datuk A.Kadir Jasin, said that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) may have forgotten that Najib Razak made this promise previously, as seen on the official 1Malaysia website.
Politicians and their officials appear to have not learned a lesson from their mishandling of the blogs under a decade ago.
“Their attacks against bloggers were widely reported by the mainstream media. This had resulted in making the public curiosity about the blogs.
“They soon started to surf the internet to find what the commotion was all about. Many went on to become ardent followers of blogs,” Kadir said on his blog.
He said that suspending a newspaper is not always a productive thing to do, more so when strong reasons are not given or worse still when the reasons for such a tough action are frivolous.
“For The Star and the Sin Chew, the 1987 suspension raised their profile and improved their sales when they resumed publication although they became more pliant towards the government,” he said.
The Heat, a weekly newspaper, was suspended following a front-page report on the spending of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak, and his wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor.
The Heat, which was launched in September, was suspended this week after receiving a second show cause letter from the MOHA.
“To my understanding, the PMO has many individuals and groups monitoring the media for him, including the high-powered Communication Action Group (CAG),” Kadir said.
