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This is not a great day for freedom of expression after what happened in KL this morning (9 Aug 2008).
The Home Affairs Ministry has issued a show-cause letter (on 16 July) to the publishers of The Herald, an editorial in tomorrow’s edition of the Catholic weekly newspaper has revealed. The paper was accused of committing two offences: - it has not followed the concept of “focusing” on religion
- it carried an article that purportedly degraded the religion of Islam
In reply to an earlier warning letter from the Ministry, the editorial in The Herald remarked that the Ministry had not defined the concept of “religion” in the application form for a publishing permit. Neither is there a definition in the Constitution. So, the publishers asked the Ministry to point out where they had gone wrong. No reply. The editorial also maintained that the article in question “America and Jihad - where do they stand?” in no way degrades any religion; it was the writer’s analysis of the global political situation “for informed and educated people”. (I have not read the article myself so I am unable to comment on it.) The Home Ministry noted that The Herald also carries articles that have political content. The editorial responded with one simple question: “Who killed Jesus? If we read the trial of Jesus, we can easily notice how politically charged that scene was…. “If we read the announcement of Jesus’ mission for the people in Luke 4:16-20, there we will see that there isn’t much of an issue with the concept of politics.” The verses are as follows: READ MORE HERE
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Next time be more tolerant and feature articles like:
[b Why Syed Hamid loves sodomy? If you are caught, just change to "sodo mee" and apologize for spelling error!!