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Malaysia's top anti-government blogger arrested
Associated Press - September 12, 2008
Sean Yoong, Kuala Lumpur – Police arrested Malaysia's top anti-government blogger Friday under a law allowing indefinite detention without trial in a move condemned by the opposition as a crackdown on free speech.
Online commentator Raja Petra Raja Kamarudin has infuriated authorities by publishing numerous claims about alleged misdeeds by government leaders on his influential Web site, Malaysia Today. The government has denounced many of Raja Petra's accusations as lies.
Raja Petra's wife, Marina Lee Abdullah, said police came to their home and arrested him under the Internal Security Act, a widely criticized law used against suspects regarded as national security threats.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said Raja Petra had written numerous offensive pieces, including a recent one that allegedly ridiculed Islam.
"We have called and advised him many times about his statements, but he still continues writing in a way that could pose a threat," Syed Hamid told the national news agency, Bernama.
The move comes two weeks after the government's telecommunications industry regulator ordered Malaysian Internet service providers to cut off access to Malaysia Today because it had allegedly published racially inflammatory comments.
Raja Petra kept the site accessible through an alternative link amid a public outcry that the government was censoring cyberspace. Authorities lifted the ban Thursday, but warned they might use the Internal Security Act against anyone who stoked political and racial strife.
Raja Petra has repeatedly encountered troubles with the law. He was charged with sedition in May for allegedly implying the deputy prime minister was involved in the killing of a young Mongolian woman.
Tensions have risen in Malaysia amid a threat by opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to topple the government by next week and a racially charged uproar sparked by a Malay Muslim ruling party politician who accused the ethnic Chinese minority of hungering for power.
The Home Ministry has sent warning letters to two newspapers and an opposition publication about their coverage of political and racial issues.
Anwar's People's Justice Party decried Raja Petra's arrest and the newspaper warnings, saying "such an attack on democracy will only accelerate the further slide of Malaysia's dipping economic and political ratings."
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