I found Dawud's letters, Malaysiakini 'a poison' to country and The losers in malaysiakini most curious. Here he is, a citizen of a country, Britain, which allows its media almost completely untrammelled freedom, and yet he is suggesting that the Malaysian government closes down malaysiakini.

One of the striking factors about the British media is its diversity. Broadcast media are required by law to be fair, balanced and impartial and there are independent checks and balances to ensure those criteria are adhered to. However the same constraints do not apply to other media.

The political and editorial values of The Sun , a dynamic, fearless, racy and by some measures, rather rightwing (though it has been supportive of the Blair government) tabloid and The Guardian , an avowedly liberalleftist, intellectual 'broadsheet' (its actually been resized to a Berliner format of late, but it still has a broadsheet soul) are quite different from one another. It's quite easy to love one and hate the other. I rather enjoy both. And that's just the mainstream media.

Papers like The Voice cater for the Anglo-Caribbean community, there are papers for most minority groups, many of them Muslim. (It's even been possible in recent years to find radical Islamist literature openly on sale in London that is banned in many Middle Eastern countries).

In short there's something for everyone and plenty for everyone to disagree with. It's contributed to Britain being a vibrant democracy with generally high standards in public life where public policy is vigorously debated.

Yet Dawud seems to have learned nothing from growing up in a free and democratic society. The pluralistic values that protect a diverse media and make it free to report without fear or favour also underpin Britain's multiculturalism a phenomenon that meant that even after the bomb attacks in London on July 7, revenge attacks on Muslims were minimal. Yet he would happily see pluralism snuffed out in Malaysia.

As someone who follows many aspects of life in Malaysia closely, if not minutely, I value malaysiakini. It offers a different point of view. Whenever I'm in Malaysia I scan the pages of the New Straits Times , the Star and The Sun , their editorials and their comment columns. I read Malaysian blogs and spend most of my time in the country talking with Malaysians of all stripes, all races, all religions and all points of view.

I've met and spoken at length with the powerful and the powerless, the tolerant and the intolerant, the inspiring and the frankly depressing. But each and every point of view adds something to my understanding.

Malaysiakini fits into that diverse patchwork with its opinion and views as well as reporting. It's not perfect, but then however hard any news organisation tries to be, none is. But one can say this of malaysiakini; the Malaysian government accrues considerable kudos from continuing to tolerate its presence and allowing it to report. The government gains far more from that than it loses.

And malaysiakini adds far more to Malaysian society than it takes something I think one could also say of the other English language media in the country (aside from the odd occasions when the attack dogs are loosed and some individual is pilloried for having had the temerity to cross or fall out with the powers-that-be).

Lastly, I would say this to Dawud - there is a debate in Britain at the moment, particularly in the wake of the July 7 bombings about what it means to be British. Many people have suggested that it means subscribing to that country's culture of tolerance, fair play, respect for the rule of law and sympathy for the underdog. It is a live and let live culture.

Can you really say you subscribe to those values? You are an intolerant voice from a country that has on the whole treated people, such as yourself, from other cultures with great tolerance. You might ask yourself why you want to hang on to that British passport. For most Britons, 'Business' would not be sufficient reason.