Dear friends, We would like to draw your attention to a new round of crackdown using the Internal Security Act in Malaysia. As in the past, this has been a convenient tool to curb and silence critics and dissent. Government threats of revocation of publishing permits have caused many mainstream media to promote self-censorship and as such stories that are critical of the government or its business cronies, or those that alleged corruption, etc never see light of day. So what's this got to do with ICT? It is against this backdrop that ICT in Malaysia has generated an important source of alternative news media in the form of Internet journalism as more Malaysians flock to the net. Maysiakini <http://www.malaysiakini.com> pioneered a whole new approach and revolutionised the reporting of alternative news to the public. Although Internet access is not widespread, it is growing. At present, malaysiakini boast of 180,000 daily unique visitors. So far there has been no attempts to shut it down as the Malaysian government has promised not to censor the net with its promotion of the Multimedia SuperCorridor. There have been other attempts though - denial of press accreditation and barring of Malaysiakini's journalists from covering government functions. According to the Editor-in-Chief of malaysiakini, Steven Gan, given the Malaysian government's track record with the print newspapers, he would not be surprised if the government sought to shutdown the site. We at Asianwomenonline.com are concerned with these developments and are running a special editorial in relation to the ISA detentions in Malaysia as some of us have worked and are still working as journalists in Malaysia. You can read it at <http://www.asianwomenonline.com> Feel free to forward this message to others. Sincerely, Wai-Leng Wong Ms AWO Editorial Team ------------ ***GKD is an initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe gkd OR type: unsubscribe gkd Archives of previous GKD messages can be found at: <http://www.globalknowledge.org>
