**Updates IFEX alerts of 11 and 6 January 2000** (RSF/IFEX) – In a 12 January 2000 letter to Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Seri Ahmad Badawi, RSF protested the arrest of Zulkifli Sulong, editor of “Harakah”. RSF considers that the charges brought against him by the authorities constitute a further step in the government’s policy […]
**Updates IFEX alerts of 11 and 6 January 2000**
(RSF/IFEX) – In a 12 January 2000 letter to Minister of Home Affairs Datuk Seri Ahmad Badawi, RSF protested the arrest of Zulkifli Sulong, editor of “Harakah”. RSF considers that the charges brought against him by the authorities constitute a further step in the government’s policy of gagging the opposition press. The organisation called on the minister to “ensure a fair trial for Zulkifi Sulong” and recalled that “a jail sentence or an overly-heavy fine would be a serious infringement of press freedom.” In July 1992, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights underlined that detention as punishment for the expression of an opinion was “one of the most reprehensible ways to impose silence”.
According to RSF’s information, on 12 January, Sulong and Chia Lim Thye, editor and publisher of the biweekly “Harakah”, were arrested and held for several hours at a police station in Kuala Lumpur. Sulong went to the police station after an arrest warrant was issued against him. The editor of the biweekly, published by Islam Se-Malaysia (PAS, Islamist), was released on bail and will be tried on 13 January. He was charged under the Sedition Law with publishing a 2 August 1999 article written by an opposition leader which accused the media of supporting the legal authorities in their prosecution of former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim. On 24 December, the Home Affairs Ministry threatened “Harakah” with sanctions if sales of the newspapers were not limited to party members. A few days earlier, the biweekly was banned from newsstands.
