Malaysians should realise that the MCA's EGM to be held today is crucial as it will determine our fundamental rights vis--vis the rights to a free press and with it the right to free speech and information.

Indeed it is even more important than the just concluded Umno annual general meeting where delegates skirted around issues, clowned around, declared holy wars and where Malays, Chinese, 'white colonialists' were lambasted in a most paranoid, xenophobic and downright racist manner. The bottom line was that nothing essential was really resolved.

I personally would like to urge delegates to the EGM today to listen to their conscience and heart when they cast their votes. Please listen to what the Chinese community thinks instead of what is being fed to you by unscrupulous leaders whose political survival is on the line.

A vote for the purchase would surely be a vote against the wishes of a whole community, but more devastatingly, it would be a vote against freedom.