The Sarawak State Government’s support of the SUPP’s unfair, undemocratic and vindictive campaign to boycott Borneo Post, See Hua Daily News and Sin Hua Evening News blaming the newspapers for the SUPP losses in the Sarawak state general elections, and in particular the defeat of the SUPP President, Tan Sri Dr. Wong Soon Kai, is a “bad international advertisement” for the “Asian Values” Democracy advocated by some Asian leaders, including the Malaysian Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed.
Mahathir has become a well-known critic of both the Western form of democracy and the press freedom in the West as not being really free or fair, holding out the “Asian Values” democracy as a superior political form where press freedom is genuinely free and fair.
Is the Sarawak State Government’s support of the SUPP boycott campaign against Borneo Post, See Hua Daily News and Sin Hua Evening News an example of this “Asian Values” Democracy in action?
If so, the “Asian Values” Democracy as advocated by Mahathir and other Asian leaders would not be able to get popular support, for the Sarawak state government’s actions are clearly unfair, unjust and undemocratic.
What is the “crime” of Borneo Post, See Hua Daily News and Sin Hua Evening News that they should be the subject of a Sarawak state government action, banning state departments and statutory bodies from placing advertisements or subscribing to the newspapers and even disallowing journalists from these newspapers from all government functions?
The SUPP leadership, which initiated the boycott campaign, has not denied that although it accuses the See Hua Group of newspapers for the defeat of the SUPP candidates to the DAP and in particular the defeat of Dr. Wong Soon Kai, See Hua Daily News had given SUPP 80 per cent of the coverage during the general elections while only 20 per cent to the DAP - i.e. 79 news items on SUPP while only 18 news items on the DAP.
When Mahathir criticised Western press freedom as not really free as they have their blemishes and abuses, he has an important point. But such criticisms of Western press freedom cannot be a justification for a new breed of greater press abuses, where newspapers which carried 80 per cent news coverage for SUPP and 20 per cent for DAP in the Sarawak state general elections are victimised and subject to a vindictive campaign!
The National Union of Journalists and the ASEAN Confederation of Journalists must take a strong stand against the grave threat to press freedom as evinced in the boycott against the three Sarawak newspapers by the SUPP and the Sarawak state government.
Malaysian and ASEAN journalists must show that they are capable of standing up for press freedom and the rights of journalists when they are threatened inside their own country or region, without having to depend on journalists from other parts of the world to fight their battle for them.
(8/10/96)