January 10, 2006	Tuesday	Zilhaj 9, 1426

KUALA LUMPUR: News reports based on secret video grabs of a woman forced to do ‘nude squats’ in police custody, which put the Malaysian government in a spot over human rights, have backfired on press freedom as it turned out that the victim’s nationality had been wrongly identified. The widely-circulated, Chinese-language daily newspaper China Press which broke the story was, obliged to publish its deepest apology on the front page for having wrongly identified the victim as a Chinese national when she turned out to be a local and ethnic Malay.

Worse, the newspaper had to sack its top two editors to stave off suspension of its publishing licence, leading to speculation that this could be the beginning of tough measures against the press in this country. The China Press practiced a feisty, ‘in-your- face’ reporting style that won it public accolades but constantly angered the internal security ministry, that regulates publications.

On Nov 23, the newspaper published an exclusive story and photographs lifted from the video clip showing police forcing a young, naked woman to perform squats. But the paper also erroneously identified the victim as a Chinese national, sparking off a diplomatic row with Beijing.

After Beijing lodged an official protest, Malaysia sent across a mission, headed by home minister Datuk Seri Azmi Khalid, to apologise for the mistreatment of its nationals. The reports of the video followed complaints by Chinese women visitors, held for visa violations, that they had been made to perform humiliating nude squats in custody.

While China Press rectified the error the next day, the damage had been done and the Malaysian government was angered at being compelled to apologise. On Thursday, editor-in-chief Chong Choong Nam and executive editor-in-chief Wang Zhao Ping were sacked and the paper made to eat humble pie. In a statement, the editors took full responsibility for the glaring mistake in the report. The alternative could have been far worse — the Ministry has powers to suspend or cancel the newspaper’s publishing licence and the laws do not permit judicial review.

“The two editors were sacrificed to satisfy the demand for blood and injured ego,” said James Wong, senior analyst for Malaysiakini, an independent news website. “They are the scapegoats.” Wong said the action is a “menacing message” intended to frighten all other editors into giving up their new found boldness to practice limited press freedom. “They have been given notice to submit to the official line,” he told IPS. “As a Chinese proverb goes, they killed one chicken to warn the rest of the monkeys.”

“The action also shows that systematic oppression continues and that all the rhetoric of transparency and accountability are just a politician’s slogans,” he said. The paper, that sells about 300,000 copies a day and gives priority to politics and violent crime in its reporting received two show-cause letters from the internal security ministry, which is headed by Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi himself, demanding explanations.

“It is too harsh a punishment for one small mistake,” said Lim Guan Eng, secretary general of the opposition Democratic Action party. “An apology should have been sufficient.” The sacking has rallied democracy activists across the country into protesting the lack of press freedom in the country.

Human rights movement ALIRAN said in a statement that the punishment meted out to China Press indicated that the outlook for media freedom is not bright. “What is disturbing about this episode is that the state has deliberately intervened in a journalistic matter that could have been handled by the management of the newspaper concerned.”—Dawn/IPS News Service