As a show of their support for and solidarity with malaysiakini, DAP Socialist Youth (Dapsy) today launched a nation-wide yellow ribbon campaign to remind the government that an open forum for healthy discussion and debate is essential.

"This campaign is to send a clear and unmistakable message to the government about the need to preserve an open forum for healthy discussion and debate, as well as to safeguard freedom of the press, in line with the creation of a healthy, mature and developed Malaysian society," its national secretary Loke Siew Fook told a press conference at the DAP headquarters in Petaling Jaya.

To kick off the campaign, Dapsy has requested all its state committees and their members throughout the country to wear yellow ribbons or affix it o­n the car aerial in support of malaysiakini in the a week-long campaign.

The yellow ribbon is the local symbol for press freedom.

"We urge all Malaysians, non-government organisations and civil society groups regardless of political affiliation to take part in this campaign as an expression of solidarity with malaysiakini and to uphold the importance of press freedom," Loke added.

Police o­n Monday raided malaysiakini's office in Bangsar, Kuala Lumpur and confiscated 15 CPUs and four servers following a police report lodged by Umno Youth which claimed the daily had published an allegedly seditious letter. Nine CPUs and o­ne server have since been returned.

Internet freedom

Loke hoped the raid o­n malaysiakini would not be the start of a clampdown o­n Internet freedom in the country as the Malaysian government has assured the world that it would not censor the Internet in line with the development of the nation's Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC).

"As the government is pushing for the development of a K-economy society, malaysiakini and other Internet news providers such as Agendadaily.com should be given accreditation and recognised by the relevant authorities," he added.

Loke also questioned the police as to why it did not carry out the same action against Umno Youth after police reports o­n seditious matters were lodged against the movement in the past.

An example, he said, was the police report lodged by him o­n Nov 15 last year against Umno Youth education bureau chief Dr Adham Baba o­n the latter's statement to close down all Chinese primary schools in the country. The statement was published o­n the UmnoYouth's website.

Loke also referred to another police last year report lodged by DAP secretary-general Kerk Kim Hock o­n Oct 10 against Umno Pasir Mas division chief Ibrahim Ali's "baseless allegations" in an interview 'Cina DAP hasut Cina MCA jangan setuju guna Bahasa Inggeris' (Chinese DAP incites Chinese MCA not to agree o­n English language switch) which was published o­n Umno's official website.

Return all computers

The two articles were later removed from their websites after the reports were lodged.

"The removal indicates that the articles must be wrongbut we didn't see the police raid the Umno Youth office and seize their computers for forensic examination," Loke said.

He urged the police to return the other nine computers to the o­nline daily immediately so that the news company can resume their operations in full gear.

Malaysiakini, set up in 1999, is the country's o­nly independent o­nline news daily.

Unlike the print and electronics media, it is free of licensing requirements because the government had pledged there would be no control of Internet content in line with the move to create the MSC, Malaysia's answer to Silicon Valley.