news feature Many were moved to tears during a candlelight vigil last night held in protest of The Sun daily's shocking decision to retrench some 40 of its staff.

About 50 people participated in the two-hour vigil which began at 10pm outside the daily's office in Petaling Jaya.

Many offered handshakes of solidarity while others comforted friends with hugs and consoling pats on the back.

Angry words were heard as ex-staff expressed disappointment with the management's "audacity and lack of regard" for its employees, many of whom were long-serving staff.

Tempers also flared when security guards rummaged through their belongings as they left the building, perhaps for the last time.

Yesterday, the daily laid off some 40 staff, including scores of journalist, citing economic reasons and downsizing. Sources told malaysiakini that a second wave of retrenchment is expected on Monday.

The Sun has been eclipsed by controversy following its front-page report on Christmas Day of a plot to kill the country's top two leaders. This irked Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad and the story was retracted.

Following this several editorial staff were suspended, prompting the daily's journalists to stage pickets calling for their reinstatement and also to protest the delay in the payment of their bonuses.

The initial retrenchment is said to have targetted those who participated in the pickets and the daily's National Union of Journalists (NUJ) members. The first to receive the letter was the NUJ branch chairperson K Kannan.

Flowers and sarcasm

Meanwhile, The Sun's editorial floor, when visited, was enveloped in a sombre mood. Several baskets of flowers were placed at the entrance and the cards on them read, 'Justice for the Sun Staff', 'Keep up the struggle', 'Safeguard Media Independence'.

However, some of the staff said that wreaths would better suit the occasion.

Sarcastic notices were also pinned to the notice board. Among them, the daily's front-page apology over the Dec 25 report which was included in the list of in-house 'award-winning' articles.

At the vigil, the staff said they were informed that should they cause any more trouble, the company would be shut down.

One of those retrenched said he received his notice at home as he was on leave. "These people are unbelievable," said the staff who declined to be named.

Bob Teoh, the daily's deputy business editor who was spared, said a voluntary meeting was to take place at 2am today to enable editors who remained to decide whether to walk out with the sacked journalists, or stay on.

Teoh also said the decision by the editors "will show who our friends are" as he claims there are those who may be looking to benefit from this sad episode.

"It's time to decide if we are real journalists or a Berjaya newsletter," said Yeoh, adding, "if we are serious, it is time to take a stand now."

Berjaya, which is owned by business tycoon Vincent Tan, holds a 19.5 percent stake in The Sun).

However, malaysiakini was informed later that the editors meeting had been postponed to next week.

Fish pond

Teoh also said that Tan has sent a team of people to The Sun to cheat the editorial staff.

"He says he has no money but he can build a RM40,000 fish pond."

Word has it that feng shui experts summoned by the management have advised that a koi pond be built to ward off the misfortune plaguing the daily.

Following the Christmas day report controversy, lawyer VK Lingam was appointed as the deputy chairperson of the company and was given the task of overseeing its day-to-day operations.

Teoh also claimed that the management told him that they would pay the bonuses if the staff stop picketing.

The company was supposed to pay a one-month bonus by the end of last month while another month's bonus was supposed to be made over a three-month instalment starting February.

Also present at the vigil were journalists from The Star, New Straits Times, The Edge, Nanyang Siang Pau, malaysiakini, NUJ secretary-general Ong Boon How, DAP national publicity secretary Ronnie Liu and former journalists.

As the crowd began to dwindle after midnight, on the road, written in candle wax, were these poignant words - 'End of the Sun'.

In a related matter, DAP national chairperson Lim Kit Siang today called on the Sun management to withdraw its retrenchment letters and enter into a negotiation with the NUJ to determine the future of the staff.

Describing it as "black day" for Malaysian journalism, Lim criticised the management's decision as a "breach of good faith" as it was in the midst of negotiating with NUJ over the delay in paying the staff's bonuses and said it would make a decision next Tuesday.