SE Asian bloggers fear govt reprisal

SE Asian bloggers fear govt reprisal

Sean Yoong, Associated Press/Kuala Lumpur

Bloggers, beware. Big Brother is watching.

The recent arrest of three Singaporeans accused of making racial slurs on Internet message boards has sparked concerns of a cyberspace crackdown by authorities in Singapore and neighboring Malaysia, where strict laws suppress outspokenness.

Web logs, or blogs, a global online phenomenon, are seen as the high-tech equivalent of personal diaries, but they've also become a public forum for free speech in Singapore and Malaysia, where the media are tightly controlled and provocative views are rarely heard.

Now, bloggers in both countries fear they'll have to watch their words, following the arrest of Benjamin Koh Song Huat, 27, and Nicholas Lim Yew, 25, in Singapore on Sept. 12 for allegedly posting comments insulting the country's Muslim Malay minority. A third Singaporean, a 17-year-old, was charged separately on Sept. 16, the Singapore Straits Times reported but did not identify him.

Charged with sedition, all three face prison terms of up to three years if convicted.

While some bloggers say they deserve little sympathy because their remarks were repugnant, the case has triggered concern that Singapore's government might be tightening social controls.

"A part of me is fairly exultant at the fact that two people who ... made extremely racist comments are being punished," wrote blogger MercerMachine. "The other part of me is sick at the fact that there isn't even a pretense of free speech now."

Koh and Lim are the first bloggers to be arrested and charged in Singapore.

In May, Chen Jiahao, a Singaporean studying in the United States, was threatened with a lawsuit for allegedly defamatory criticism about Singapore's scholarship policies. Chen was spared after he apologized and closed down his personal Web site.

International press freedom group Reporters Without Borders decried the lawsuit as "intimidation" that "could make the country's blogs as timid and obedient as the traditional media."

The racial element to the blogs was bound to raise hackles in Singapore, where ethnic Chinese comprise 80 percent of the city- state's 4.2 million populace, with Malays making up around 15 percent and ethnic Indians some 5 percent.

Neighboring Malaysia has a similarly delicate ethnic mix among its 25 million people, with nearly 60 percent Malays, 25 percent Chinese, 10 percent Indians and a remainder of other races.

Both nations pride themselves on racial harmony and rank among Southeast Asia's most peaceful places, but critics say the apparent racial order is forced by their governments, using tough laws such as the one that hit the bloggers.

In Malaysia, laws provide for maximum one-year prison sentences for Web users who post false, indecent or offensive material. "The online environment is not a legal vacuum," warns the Communications and Multimedia Content Code, which came into force last year. "In general, if something is illegal off-line, it will also be illegal online."

Malaysian bloggers have faced no legal repercussions so far, but many have been worried since the government threatened one popular Web writer with jail after a racially provocative comment was posted on his Web site. Jeff Ooi was warned that he could be jailed under a security law that allows imprisonment without trial if he was found to be encouraging debate on contentious issues after a reader published a comment that offended Muslims.