Ahmad Lutfi Othman, the chief editor of suspended Detik magazine, has expressed surprise at the government's move against PAS' official organ, Harakah , whose publication frequency has been reduced from eight to two a month effective immediately.

The Home Ministry has approved the renewal of Harakah's printing permit this afternoon, after a day of uncertainty when its earlier permit expired yesterday.

However, instead of a licence to publish twice a week, Harakah can now only appear once every two weeks. The edition planned for this Friday would not proceed, according to its managing director Hishamuddin Yahya, and the management board would decide on Sunday when the next issue would be published.

Lutfi said it was "most regretable" that the government, led by Umno, had become more oppressive despite winning the Nov 29 general elections with more than two-thirds majority.

The government already had taken Harakah's editor, Zulkifli Sulong, and its printer, to court recently on sedition charges, and the latest measure to further curb Harakah is another "step backward" for the tradition of freedom of the press in a democracy, Lutfi told malaysiakini today.

"Umno leaders have not learnt their lesson from the polls results, which showed a massive loss of support for the party from the Malays. This restriction on Harakah's growing circulation by cutting down on its publication frequency will further alienate the people, especially the Malays, who make up Harakah's main readership," he added.

The Home Ministry in December curbed Harakah's circulation by restricting sales to PAS members only and confiscated copies sold by news vendors soon after the polls.

In the lead-up to the last general elections, many non-Malays had also turned to buying Harakah off the news-stand as an alternative news source other than mainstream newspapers.

It is reported that Harakah's circulation climbed to 377,000 just before last November's election. Its circulation was now 277,000 following government moves to restrict sales to only PAS party members.

"This latest move to suppress freedom of the press would make Malaysia a laughing stock among Asean countries as the trend among regional press is greater freedom, as evidenced by Indonesian and the Philippine press, while ours is suffering greater government control," Lutfi said.

"In our case (of Detik's suspension since December), we have experienced the reality of media control taken out of the theoretical realm of the lecture hall," he added.

Only on Monday, the bimonthly magazine, Detik , which had foregone printing six issues for the past three months, went online with Detik Daily to overcome its setback, as reported yesterday "Detik goes online after suspension of offline publication" , Feb 29).

The online website, [#2]detik.daily.tripod.com[/#] , now contributed by two editorial staff concentrating on Umno election news, registered more than 4,000 "hits" yesterday, improving on the 3,000 hits on the first day, Lutfi reported.

"We hope the Home Minister would be more rational and approve our publication permit quickly to check the deteriorating image of press freedom in Malaysia," he added.