Pas urges PM to fulfil his promise to protect media freedom

KUALA LUMPUR - Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has been urged to fulfil his pledge to defend freedom of expression and protect the freedom of the media as promised in his manifesto.

The call was voiced by Pas Deputy President Datuk Seri Tuan Ibrahim Tuan Man who expressed concern about the issue of freedom of expression following the blocking of several media channels including news portal MalaysiaNow and TV Pertiwi.

"We see this restriction on media access as a desperate act and contradicts Anwar's previous struggle which always protested the previous government's administration style.

"I support the insistence by senior journalists who want the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) not to act as if they are ‘big brother’ by arbitrarily blocking online content," he said in a statement, on Friday.

Last Tuesday, eight local media veterans expressed concern when most of the content of news portals labelled as 'offensive' and only opinions considered critical of the government, were blocked by the MCMC.

In a joint statement, they expressed their concern when MCMC had recently been seen summoning media practitioners to provide explanations on the content reported through their respective news portals and online sites.

The statement was issued by Tan Sri Johan Jaaffar, Datuk A Kadir Jasin, Datuk Hussamuddin Yaacob, Datuk Seri Azman Ujang and Datuk Dr Chamil Wariya.

Also participating in the joint statement were Datuk Yong Soo Heong, Datuk Zakaria Wahab and Dr G Manimaran.

Commenting further, Tuan Ibrahim said the time had come for the people to be enlightened and understand an issue with true information.

Therefore, he stressed that the government should give the people the opportunity to consider their choices as a result of freedom of information. - AWANI