KUALA LUMPUR, July 5 — PKR newspaper, Suara Keadilan, will go to print this Wednesday without a home ministry publishing permit.
The political party’s paper was denied a renewal of its previous permit, which expired on June 30.
PKR chief strategist Chua Tian Chang said today that the publication would resume business as usual, as the ministry had been vague over the non-renewal of the permit.
“It is unclear yet what the government means when they say that the permit cannot be renewed but that the publication is not banned.
“We will continue to print until a proper decision is made,” he told reporters in Parliament today.
He pointed out that it was normal for a publication to resume its publication although its permit had expired due to the government’s “low efficiency”.
“It is an expiry, it does not mean they plan to revoke the permit entirely yet, so as far as we are concerned, we will continue to publish,” he said.
Chua added that the ministry’s reason for refusing to renew the publication’s licence was clearly unreasonable.
“We, as the opposition, cannot be publishing news to praise the Barisan Nasional government. Our purpose is to expose the weaknesses in the government, not to just praise them,” he said.
PKR vice-president Azmin Ali today also submitted an emergency motion to the Dewan Rakyat Speaker on the issue.
“We hope the motion will be accepted and debated in Parliament tomorrow. We are prepared to furnish the details of what happened,” he said.
Azmin claimed that the ministry’s failure to renew the party newspaper was a clear violation of democratic freedoms, including freedom of the press and the rights of the opposition.
Suara Keadilan, he said, received a letter on July 2 from the ministry stating that they were not satisfied with the explanation the publication had given concerning its Felda story.
The ministry had asked the publication to explain its headline, “Felda Bangkrap”, on its June 22 to 29 edition, which the land development authority had claimed was defamatory.
Felda is also filing a RM200 million suit against Suara Keadilan over the article.
Azmin added that the ministry had also claimed Suara Keadilan had failed to respond to their earlier “surat-surat teguran”.
“PKR wishes to assert that the party has never received any letters from the ministry, including this ‘surat teguran’.
“Our lawyers have given a written reply on June 29, informing that the publication had not received such letters and requested details of copies of them but the ministry failed to respond to date,” said Azmin.
He added that in the same letter, the ministry had also said that its panel of 13 members had not yet decided on the permit renewal and that the “surat teguran” had revolved around the publication’s reports “Umno-BN ketagih sedut hasil Petronas”, “BN Bolot, jual saham Bernas” and “Umno-BN rosakkan institusi perubatan”.
Based on the reasons, Azmin said, the ministry had found that the publication had failed to abide by the ministry’s guidelines, which stipulates that the newspaper was restricted to publishing only party-related news.
“This is absurd, ridiculous and filled with mala fide as surely it cannot expect an opposition paper to report only on party activities without writing on current issues and the present government,” said Azmin.
PKR vice-president R. Sivarasa agreed and said that as an official and viable opposition party, it was ludicrous for the government to stop PKR from publishing news about current issues.
“They do not understand that our job is not to praise the government. If we are, then we might as well be BN MPs,” he said.
He noted that the publication had applied for a permit renewal on March 11 this year but the ministry had deliberately delayed its decision on the matter until the original permit expired on June 30.
“Only on July 2, they sent us a letter saying that we cannot continue our publication,” he said.
He noted that the party still had the option of filing an appeal with the ministry, should all other avenues fail.
“We can choose to appeal or to go straight to court with this. We will keep the option open. For now, however, we hope we can debate this in Parliament,” said Sivarasa.
On the RM200 million lawsuit by Felda, the PKR leaders said confidently that they were ready to face them in court.
“We have the evidence to prove our article [was] right and we will bring this to court. If Felda’s funds continue to deplete, it will become bankrupt,” said Sivarasa.
