Bloggers cautioned

Watching the well-dressed commuters on my way home this evening reminded me how well-off Singapore is. I stopped for dinner at a food centre where a group of students sitting next to me were chatting in English. Then I visited the local library, which has floor-to-ceiling glass windows and broadband access, and borrowed books published in the West only this year and the year before.

In Singapore it’s easy to think one is living in a global village where life is getting better and English is the common language.

But more than an ocean separates us from the West, I was reminded when I went online some time ago.

"Malaysia cracks down on bloggers", reported the BBC website. Just across the Causeway from Singapore, bloggers have been warned by the Malaysian government that they could be prosecuted under anti-terrorism laws if they insult the king or Islam. The BBC added:

Raja Petra Kamarudin, the editor of one of Malaysia’s most popular political websites, Malaysia Today, turned himself in to police on Wednesday, to answer allegations that he had mocked Islam and threatened racial harmony.

He was released after eight hours of questioning, he later wrote on his website.

I clicked on the link next to the BBC report to visit Malaysia Today for the first time just to find out why he got into trouble. Yes, the home page contained posts critical of the government. The tabloid-style headlines sniped at the prime minister and the authorities. But outspoken as they seemed by local standards, worse things have been said about George Bush and Tony Blair.

I am not saying there should be open season on politicians. One reason I seldom read warbloggers is they are so partisan. But there should be freedom of speech.

It could be argued, of course, if one sticks one’s neck out, one should be prepared for the consequences. That argument is commonly heard in this region. The International Herald Tribume quoted a Malaysian minister as saying the warning to the bloggers was “not aimed at eliminating the freedom of speech but to wipe out the freedom to cheat, defame and hurt people so that blogs can be really a source of correct information… and not a platform to hurl abuses at people”.

True, but isn’t it in the government’s own interest to let the people speak out; how else would it know what the people really think?

I recall the time when Indira Gandhi declared a state of emergency and muzzled the press in India in June 1975. Indian newspapers with the exception of The Statesman and the Indian Express became Indira Gandhi’s mouthpieces, not publishing a word of criticism against her. Opposition leaders were jailed; dissent was not tolerated. In March 1977 she called a general election — and the rug was pulled from under her feet. She was swept out of power by a landslide.

She wouldn’t have been so out of touch with public opinion if she hadn’t gagged the press and surrounded herself with sycophants.