Malaysia Seizes Opposition Newspapers

By JULIA ZAPPEI / AP WRITER

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian authorities have seized the latest editions of two opposition newspapers, increasing political tensions in the country, officials said Wednesday.

Tempers have flared since last week when the National Front government took over the northern Perak state from the opposition after several of its lawmakers switched allegiance.

Tian Chua, information chief of the People's Justice Party, said at least 20,000 copies of the latest issue of the party's Suara Keadilan newspaper—which has a circulation of 150,000—were seized since Tuesday from newsstands.

"I think this is the start of a major crackdown ... to restrict the free distribution of information," Chua said.

Mohamad Rashidi Hassan, news editor of Harakah, the paper of the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, said copies of the two latest editions were removed from stands, but he could not say how many were seized. Harakah comes out twice a week and has a nationwide circulation of about 140,000.

"It is a politically motivated move by the government to block information to let people know what happened in Perak," he said.

The People's Justice Party and the Democratic Action Party are in an opposition alliance that won Perak and four other states in general elections last year.

The alliance cried foul over the loss of Perak, saying the National Front should not have seized the government without proving its majority in the state assembly first. It has vowed to challenge the takeover in court.

A Home Ministry official confirmed there was an operation to seize the papers but declined to give further details because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Other officials could not immediately be reached.

Meanwhile the journalists around the world are routinely threatened, intimidated or worse, resulting in fear that endangers freedom of the press, a media group said Tuesday.

In its new "Attacks on the Press" report, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists details threats that use everything from text messaging to violence.

"Today, the greatest threats to freedom of the press are more insidious than a generation ago because they are intended to induce a climate of fear and self-censorship through systematic violence and emblematic arrest," journalist and author Carl Bernstein wrote in the report's preface.

Gangs, paramilitaries and drug traffickers routinely terrorize journalists in such countries as Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico, the report says.

Vietnam, Burma, Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia have been following China's model of controlling the Internet and punishing those who get around restrictions, the report adds.

"Attacks on the Press" also notes that reporters in Africa rely on text messaging, though the technology is also being used to threaten them.

The report also criticizes the control over television coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia by the Russian and Georgian governments, and warns of a new regional agreement that threatens independent satellite stations in the Middle East.

The CPJ report is being released less than a week after the International Federation of Journalists announced that at least 109 reporters and media workers were killed last year while on assignment.

Iraq remains the deadliest place for a journalist to work.