The ongoing media slander and vilification of malaysiakini in the TV and mainstream press can have two possible intentions - either to denigrate it in the eyes of the public or more ominously, as a prelude to closing down the online daily ([#1]Demonising Malaysiakini[/#], Feb 16).

A campaign to denigrate malaysiakini, would be ill-advised and likely to backfire but not beyond the dense minds behind it. The credibility of the government is so low that people would be inclined to believe the opposite of what is spat out in the controlled mainstream media.

With many Internet users yet to have heard of malaysiakini, the free publicity is welcome indeed and may make Malaysiakini.com a household word. Curious new readers will log in for a look and become regular readers hungry for the real news. As for the attempted defamation on the integrity of the online news provider, the effect will be as immaterial as the derogatory remarks regularly lashed out at foreign new agencies. People still trust them more than the widely perceived government propaganda machines.

However the current vilification campaign may a prelude to closing down the website and this threat must be taken very seriously indeed. Despite the hands-off policy on the Internet, the benefits to the government of closing down malaysiakini far exceed any expected adverse effect on the MSC project which is widely perceived as a failure anyway. This is a government which hides its abject corruption and justify its massive abuses on the coddling of a subservient mass media.

The circulation of foreign magazines is still small and does not worry the authorities. But the readership of malaysiakini now rivals a mainstream paper and this fact must send shivers down the establishment who depend on their monopoly of information to forestall any public outrage against their deep corruption, excesses and injustice. Malaysiakini has torn a visible rupture in their iron-fisted control of the press and the hole grows bigger by the day.

Does malaysiakini have any contingency plans to thwart government action to close them down? Does it have any back-up chain of command and reserve equipment? The authorities can harass key personnel and confiscate computer equipment, but the distributed nature of the Internet means that the government is powerless to prevent the website from being updated which can be done from anywhere in the world.

Malaysiakini must seriously look into how they can continue broadcasting should their office be sealed by an authoritarian government bent on protecting its monopoly of information.

One way for malaysiakini to continue operations is to go 'underground' when the authorities decide to pull the rug. There is nothing the authorities can do about the reformasi websites because there is nobody to target. Having built up its reputation and credibility, malaysiakini will continue to be influential and widely read even if bylines from news articles are removed.

I am not being paranoid and I believe the threat to malaysiakini is real just as the online paper's threat to the establishment is equally real. It is not a matter of 'if' but 'when' the sword falls. We should not depend forever on the indulgence of a government which depends heavily on a subservient press to prop it up. Neither can we depend on the MSC project to provide an umbrella of protection as the umbrella is getting leaky with the lack of investments.

A crackdown will result in howls within the country and negative publicity outside but this is a government which cares nothing for public opinion either locally or internationally. Having withstood the storm of Anwar Ibarhim's unjust jailing, the closure of malaysiakini will be a mere blip in the public relations scene.

Malaysiakini must look to the future with justified fear and trepidation and plan accordingly. It must choose whether it is content to end up as a footnote in Malaysian history or strive to continue as a beacon of democracy bring real news to the people right up to the next elections.