Cartoon Rage, and the assault on freedom of speech, continues. From AFP, with thanks to Sr. Soph:
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….
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….
The Bangkok-based Southeast Asian Press Alliance said on Friday that the amount of government interference in the Malaysian media, particularly of late, was an indication of the country”s declining standards of democracy.
“The government has no place interfering with the press and upsetting this system of checks and balances,” it said in a statement.