Malaysian Islamic Repression
Charles Johnson
Sun Feb 26, 2006 at 7:57 am PST • Views: 314
The Islamic government of Malaysia continues cracking down on newspapers that publish the Mohammed cartoons, and on newspapers that publish cartoons about the Mohammed cartoons: Malaysia suspends another newspaper over cartoons.
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia has suspended the operations of another Chinese-language newspaper for publishing one of the controversial cartoons that have sparked global protests.Publication of the Berita Petang Sarawak, a newspaper in the eastern states of Sarawak, Sabah and neighbouring Brunei, has been suspended for two weeks, the Internal Security Ministry said in a statement late Saturday.It said the two-week suspension was effective from Sunday until March 11.
“The decision was made after Berita Petang Sarawak published an article: “We are prepared for the jihad war’, on February 4, which contained the caricature,” the ministry said.
A top Berita Petang Sarawak official declined to comment Sunday.
Earlier this month the government suspended the Chinese-language Guangming Daily for two weeks for publishing a photograph of a person reading a newspaper carrying one of the cartoons.
It also shut down indefinitely the operations of The Sarawak Tribune, believed to be the first newspaper in the world to be closed for publishing the drawings, which have sparked a wave of protests that have left some two-dozen people dead.
But the official New Straits Times, which published a cartoon parodying the controversy over caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed, escaped punishment after it issued a front page apology.
Frank says: