As a bilingual reader of both the English and Chinese newspapers, I am gravely concerned with the report in The Edge that Nanyang Siang Pau is going to be taken over by the MCA-related Huaren Holding and the Star Publications.

It is another form of political control, more subtle but no less detrimental to public interests than the continued existence of the Printing Presses and Publications Act (PPPA).

Already the MCA is controlling the English-language daily The Star through majority ownership and the appointment of key reporting and editorial personnel who churn out many anti-opposition stories, albeit in more subtle ways, all these years.

And now, if the takeover of the Nanyang Siang Pau is successful, MCA's propaganda power will be unimaginably tremendous. Given the ultra-low credibility of the Umno-controlled media now among Malaysians of all races, MCA will certainly be more influential than Umno.

However, the most detrimental effect would be on the intellectual and moral development of Malaysians, especially the Chinese who would be bombarded with even more moronic propaganda.

It is already widely speculated in the Chinese community that if the takeover bid is successful, Wong See Wah who has been the propaganda chief of MCA would be appointed to the board of directors, while a senior editor with a Datuk decoration now working for another Chinese newspaper, the editor-in-chief.

In this scheme of things, MCA not only will control two major newspapers through ownership but two groups of journalists, one in the English medium and the other, Chinese.

It would be an Orwellian nightmare for all Malaysians who cherish freedom of speech in both its political and economic senses.

I pray the bid will fail. I hope Malaysians of all races would be seriously and actively concerned. The free world out there too must not close one eye. This would be an important front to fight Dr Mahathir Mohamad's dictatorship.