Despite finding a way to circumvent the media law, the editor of two banned magazines said he had suspended all his remaining publishing activities two months ago due to financial woes as a result of harassment from the authorities.

Ahmad Lutfi Othman told malaysiakini today the publication of his controversial bi-monthly tabloids had to be suspended because he needed to deal with outstanding debts related to his publishing activities.

Lutfi had been producing his 32-page Bahasa Malaysia tabloids without a publishing licence by exploiting a loophole in the Printing Presses and Publications Act.

The law [PPPA] states that only magazines published in series [periodicals] require a publishing permit, he said.

Since he launched his first issue more than a year ago, Lutfi had published some 30-odd editions of the tabloid, each time under different mastheads.

In theory, these publications  which carried news and analysis on current affairs  are not periodicals since all his tabloids appeared only once, and thus need not obtain a publishing licence.

The tabloids carried a number of imaginative titles such as Adil, Haraki, Memo 14 and Memo 15.

According to Lutfi, the last five issues of his tabloids average about 50,000 copies each.

The legal loophole, however, did not stop the government from harassing the editor-cum-publisher.

Lufti said his company accrued losses as early as last October when the police seized all issues of one edition because of contents relating to alleged corrupt practices by Selangor Menteri Besar Dr Mohd Khir Toyo.

I lost some RM50,000 from this alone, he lamented.

Lutfi has since taken his battle against Mohd Khir to the Anti-Corruption Agency where he had filed a battery of reports, backed by documents which he had obtained from his sources alleging incidences of corruption by the chief minister.

Hefty fines

On top of the seizures of his tabloids, Lutfi said he had to also contend with fines issued by the courts to those publishing and distributing his publications.

He said that the authorities had arrested the distributors and vendors of his tabloids and charged them of selling prohibited publications.

I have a special agreement with the distributors that if any court action arises, I will share the responsibility and the burden of the fines, he said.

Otherwise, Lutfi would find it difficult to convince the vendors to continue selling his publications.

He added that he has to settle some RM20,000 to RM30,000 in fines dished out so far by the courts.

However, Lutfi stressed that although several distributors have been fined, this did not imply that he had gone against the law in producing his publications.

In all these cases, the distributors pleaded guilty to protect their own business interests, he lamented.

The media activist said that it is likely that an on-going case against his publisher will ultimately decide whether he can continue to exploit the publication loophole.

The prosecutor has recently concluded his case. We now have to wait and see if the magistrate will call for the publisher [the defence] to testify, he added.

New permits

This is not the first time that the noted media activist crossed swords with Home Ministry officials who are tasked to enforce the countrys restrictive printing law.

Lufti had two of his earlier publications  weekly magazines Detik and al-Wasilah  banned by the government in Dec 1999 and March last year respectively.

He added since the expiry of the publishing permits for these two popular magazines, he had submitted at least five applications to renew their permits, all of which were rejected.

In addition, he said his applications for a number of new newspaper publishing licences have yet to elicit a response from the Home Ministry.

It has been over a year since I applied for these permits but I have not received any reply, Lutfi lamented.

Newspaper and magazine publishing licenses in Malaysia are issued by the ministry and have to be renewed annually.

There have been numerous protests against this restrictive law which media activists claim is used to hold media owners at ransom thus ensuring they tow the governments line.

But despite his current problems, Lutfi is not about to give up. He said he planned to resume his unlicensed publications after his financial woes are resolved.