李敖 sponsored US$1000 in support to blogger who paid a big price

Taiwan Yahoo New Link

郭冠英：政治出櫃 李敖捐一千美金聲援

更新日期:2009/03/24 18:35

郭冠英坦承自己是就是范蘭欽後，立即遭到新聞局免職，郭冠英接受媒體訪問時表示，他承認自己就是范蘭欽是「政治出櫃」，是不再偷偷摸摸的愛國，而他對於新聞局把他免職能夠諒解，強調月底前就會回台灣，要把事情清楚，也會依法對免職處分提出申覆。而傳出李敖聽到這個號稱小李敖的被開除，馬上透過媒體要捐他一千美金，表示聲援。

獲 知遭免職的郭冠英接受媒體訪問時透露，當年江南案時，他偷偷將政府機密文件交江南家屬去打官司，在當時是背叛政府的行為，但時代改變之後，證明他這是愛國 的行為。而他原本「只想好好吃口飯、偷偷摸摸地愛國」，現在承認自己就是范蘭欽，是政治出櫃、是以真名來愛國。郭冠英：『我被逼出來以真名來愛國，而不是 像過去的20年，我是隱名埋姓的在愛國，就是這麼樣的不同，至於被逼出來真名的愛國，就像政治出櫃。』

郭冠英並說，范蘭欽的言論只是知識份 子發抒個人想法、對社會批評，是盼望盼中華民國能夠存在得更好，雖然他因此被免職，但他視為是國家的恩典，也是堅持作為一個中國人的回報。郭冠英：『我這 可以說是國家對我的恩典，最後可以說是我作為一個，堅持作一個中國人的回報，我不怪任何人，我非常滿意。』

郭冠英強調，他熱愛中華民國，恨 的是台獨的理念，他對新聞局及整個政府毫無怨言，他說今天如果換他是新聞局長，在壓力之下，對范蘭欽事件也會做出同樣的決定。但他也質疑「蓄意欺瞞」與 「言行不當」是否已達足以記兩大過免職的程度，他表示月底前會返回台灣，會把事情說清楚，並循體制提出申覆，即使申訴不成，他相信，在中華民國仍然可以找 到一口飯吃。

Famous Taiwanese politician Li Ao 李敖 sponsored US$1000 in support of a cyber-activist Mr. Guo Guan Ying 郭冠英 who paid a huge price this month to lose his senior civil servant post and pension of few hundred thousand.

Mr. Guo is blogger strongly supporting Pan-Blue-Camp and oppose the Independence of Taiwan. He had been in the past 20 years wrote and blog online with secretive moniker of Fan Lan Qin 范兰钦. He took very strong position and firmly attacked his opponents in the Pan-Green-Camp or pro-Independence Camp. These online activities does not fit his sensitive official career as a news bureau leason diplomatic officier in Canada. It is very sensitive especially President Ma Ying Jiu is strongly against the politics between Taiwanese from Taiwan vs other Provinces.

Mr Guo's cyber-oppnents had recently exposed his identity and proved who he is. which after brief initial denial he had bravely admitted. Upon his admittance of his secrative blogger monika he had been dismissed from his high civil servant post due to so called Improper Public Conducts. He paid a big price for his Cyber Activism.

It is common even in Singapore for Bloger & Cyber Activists to pay one form of price or another. E.g. Mr. Gopalan Nair. Mr. Nair also received some form of support and sponsorship for his contributions, I call the Singaporeans to further support him.

When this kind of supports continues it motivate the fighters to go further and longer against the corrupted and incompetent famiLEE LEEgime :-)

Sammyboy.Com Thread

Burmese Activist marked Human Rights day with mini-exhibition

This was held by Burmese activists at Peninsular Plaza today.

Arts articles and photos were their exhibits, and Singaporeans went to show support.

The plaza's management was not very happy and their manager & security guards went to raise issue and demanded them to remove exhibits that were stuck on the wall for display. No major incident, but Burmese were told that in future they need to apply for permission from the plaza's management. :-)

Isn't it Draconian even within a private building? If it was a buffet or official opening with lunch spread & bouquets be placed outside of their shop, does that require management approval then? This is just the political messages that caused over-reaction of the management isn't it?

SammyBoy.Com Thread

Martyn See's documentary Speakers' Cornered now in .3GP format

I had just converted Martyn See's documentary film Speakers Cornered into the handphone's movie (.3GP) file format and uploaded online. The size of this movie file is just 28MB and may be transferred between handphones using BlueTooth in just an estimate of 10 minutes. It's YouTube.Com version is 63MB in .FLV Flash format. You may download them from URLs below and store .3GP file into handphone via USB to distribute to your friends via BlueTooth or MMS.

speakers_cornered.3gp
speakers_cornered.flv

:-)

Today the Speakers Cornered trial is still going on at court 19, I am using this file in my handphone as reference. This movie had been rated NC-16 by MDA of famiLEE LEEgime.

sammyboy.com thread

NTU Students Protested at Speakers' Corner

I recorded few hundred Mega Bytes of videos at Speakers' Corner this afternoon for a protest staged by some students from Nanyang Technological University, but I have no bandwidth right now to upload them yet, since I am still occupied with uploading videos of Mr. JBJ's funeral. I will upload at least the MP3 audio if not the video. It is quite substantial amount of data and will need long time to upload.

The students had a large banner made crudely and placed on ground of the field. And they had delivered speeches, while having many many cameras to record them all. It began at about 1630Hr and lasted beyond 1800Hr.

The protest was made against NTU's internal publications' censorship regarding a news reporting some visits made by SDP's Dr. CSJ recently in campus.

This is a very positive sign that students are getting more vocal and active and that they received support from activists and received attention of media. I encourage the students to continue to stand up for what they can identify as unfairness and faults that need to be voiced out against. :-)


Sammyboy.Com Thread

An article about Malaysian Political Blogosphere

I just want to copy this article from MalaysiaKini.Com here before it disappears into the archive, it has lots of introduction on Malaysia Political Blogs & websites, a good source of reference for Cyber Activists in Singapore.

The BN doesn't 'get' the Internet
Sep 19, 08 11:16am opinion

The directive goes out from MCMC to TMNet and other ISPs operating in Malaysia - they are to block access to RPK's news site, Malaysia Today.

Very quickly, RPK gets wind that his readers in Malaysia cannot gain access to his news site. In response, he sets up mirror sites and gets word out through Malaysiakini, the blogosphere and the major Malaysian mailing list nodes.

Sure enough, most of his regular readers get wind of this and are able to access his site again. The blogophere erupts against the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission and the Barisan Nasional government. Malaysia Today is once again accessible and worst still, for the BN, its actions have raised the ire of the blogosphere.

This recent episode captures the essence of the BN's attitude towards the Internet - they just don't 'get' it.

It would be an understatement to say that the BN leadership, as a whole, has little inkling as to how public opinion is shaped and how political news is disseminated in cyberspace. Its attitude towards bloggers, blogging and the blogsophere, for one, has been reactionary, erratic and inconsistent.

Embracing the blogosphere

Immediately after the March general election, there was a rush within the BN towards trying to understand the role of bloggers and the blogosphere in influencing the election results. There was even talk of making it compulsory for current and aspiring BN representatives to have their own blogs.

The then newly-minted Information Minister Ahmed Shabery Cheek publicly stated that the government would engage with bloggers and even took the step of inviting bloggers to share their views on an RTM programme. One of the first bloggers invited onto this programme was none other than Raja Petra Kamarudin, or RPK. The schizophrenic nature of the BN government was demonstrated when RPK's news site was recently blocked.

Six months after the March elections, how much have the BN representatives responded to the call to set up their own blog sites? Not much, apparently.

Of the 85 BN MPs in Peninsular Malaysia, only 13 of them currently have their own blogs (15%). In contrast, 59 out of the 79 opposition MPs (Ibrahim Ali, who is an independent, is excluded as are East Malaysian MPs because blogs are not so important there), or almost three quarters have their own blogs.

Of course, having a blog does not mean that these blogs have a wide reach or even that they are regularly updated. Some of these blogs were set up just prior to the March general election and have not much updated since.

One notable example is the blog of the Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng (http://limguaneng.wordpress.com/). But a majority of the blogs run by opposition MPs have fresh content and have been set up to disseminate news concerning and views of these opposition MPs.

Is it important for BN MPs, many of whom are ministers or deputy ministers, to have their own blogs? Can they not depend on the websites of their ministries and online media coverage to disseminate news about their activities and their views?

Arguably, many BN MPs are stuck in this mould of thinking, reliant on the mainstream press to cover their every move and thinking that this is sufficient. What many of them do not realise is the cyberspace is a totally different media 'universe' as it were and that having coverage in the mainstream press does not guarantee that this will be replicated online.

Why the anti-BN bias online?

Anyone who regularly surfs the Net for political news would attest to the fact that anti-BN news and views dominate cyberspace. This is partly the BN's creation since its stifling of the mainstream media has forced the public to rely on alternative online news sites and blogs. BN's online absence means that it does not have an effective and credible means of 'neutralising' the online news bias against it.

In cyberspace, if a politician does not have an identity or branding, someone else will do the branding for him or her. In this case, that 'someone' usually goes by the name 'Google'.

A simple exercise illustrates this. If one did not know much about Jamaluddin Jarjis, the former minister of science, technology and innovation and current MP of Rompin, a 'Google' search will reveal him as the minister who made racist remarks against an Indian student while in the US and the minister who was accused of groping a promoter at a nightclub in KL.

In the past, the BN could rely on a pliant media not to report any offensive remarks that may have been made 'accidentally' by a BN politician. Now, it is likely that such remarks would likely be picked up by an online newspaper such as Malaysiakini or an observant blogger. Once such news gets onto cyberspace, the fallout is almost instantaneous.

Bloggers will follow up with negative posts criticising the politician in question which will then lead on to more posts and more negative reactions. The effect is multiplicative which explains why most Google searches associated with BN politicians almost lead to negative blog posts.

Google's algorithms automatically take note of the sites which registers the most links in relation to certain politicians in question and these links are usually related to something foolish that a politician has said or done rather than something associated with his or her ministerial responsibilities.

What money can't buy

The BN is not used to playing the role of the underdog in the political sphere. But it is clearly outmanned and outgunned in cyberspace. The number of blogs which can be categorised as anti-BN or anti-establishment significantly outnumber the blogs which are supportive of the BN.

This is especially evident among the Malaysian Alpha-bloggers including RPK, Rocky's Bru and Jeff Ooi (left). An examination of the blogroll of most of the social-political bloggers finds the usual suspects, most of whom are anti-establishment. In fact, it is hard to name a respected blogger who can be categorised as pro-BN.

The BN cannot overcome this disadvantage in cyberspace by throwing money at the problem. The BN cannot bribe or buy its way into cyberspace.

One of the main reasons why the number of anti-BN bloggers vastly outnumber pro-BN bloggers is that blogging is an activity which requires a lot of personal commitment and passion. The bloggers who gain recognition have done so because of their willingness to share their honest views on the issues of the day on a regular basis.

Pro-BN supporters, perhaps more concerned with contracts and political positions, are not similarly motivated. But even if the BN could pay a whole army of bloggers to set up pro-BN blogs, they would be facing an uphill task to convince the already skeptical reading public of their credibility.

This is not to say that none of the BN's policies can be defended or that the opposition is free from criticism. But for a pro-BN blogger or even a BN MP to gain the same kind of cyberspace respect as Jeff Ooi or Rocky (right), he or she has to be free to criticise the BN as well as the opposition in equal measure.

The mentality of the BN follows the 'either you're for us or against us' philosophy. The party that does not allow its backbenchers to defy the whip would surely not allow one of its own to use his or her blog to criticise the BN in equal measure as the opposition.

Herein lies of one the realities of cyberspace which the BN has not yet grasped. The inherent anti-establishment bias in cyberspace means that a blogger can gain an audience and credibility by just attacking the BN.

After all, this was what Jeff Ooi was doing before he became an MP. But a pro-BN or BN MP cannot hope to gain the same level of respect or the same reach if he or she were to just repeat the party line in cyberspace.

Kit Siang, the Internet trailblazer

That cyberspace has an anti-BN bias is partly the BN's own making. The strict controls on mainstream media drove the public to alternative news sources online and for the more motivated, to create blogs as channels to vent their anti-BN views.

The same strict controls are also responsible for driving opposition MPs to the blogosphere and cyberspace. Perhaps no opposition politician has embraced cyberspace more than Lim Kit Siang. He wrote about IT issues as early as the mid 1990s.

He was one of the few politicians who uploaded his press releases on his own personal website. He was one of the key drivers in continuously upgrading DAP's website, publishing the press statements of its MPs and Aduns on its website and also encouraging its representatives to start blogs of their own.

One could say that Kit Siang was made for the Internet age despite his age. He is probably one of the few senior politicians who still does his own online research and is probably a voracious consumer of online news.

Kit Siang's blog (http://blog.limkitsiang.com/) is probably one of the most visited social political blogs in Malaysia as evidenced by the numerous comments he gets after every posting.

Anwar Ibrahim's website (http://www.anwaribrahim.com/) is much slicker and reminds me of a website of an aspiring US presidential candidate. It is more comprehensive than Kit Siang's blog in that it has sections where one can make financial contributions, request Anwar to speak at events and view his past speeches and op-eds.

He also has a blog (http://anwaribrahimblog.com/) which has his public schedule, YouTube videos, news items featuring Anwar as well as his press releases.

Even Dr Mahathir Mohamad (http://www.chedet.com/) joined the blogosphere when he found that the free access he had to the mainstream media when he was the PM was not so accessible after he left office. His blog has since reached the six-million-hits mark and he continues to lob verbal grenades against Pak Lah's administration.

In contrast, no BN senior leader can claim to have the same kind of Internet presence or traffic. It remains to be seen if Najib's recently launched website, (http://www.1malaysia.com.my/), will get the same kind of attention which Dr M's blog receives. Without fresh and honest content, it might prove to be a short-lived phenomenon.

But some BN politicians do 'get it'

It would not be fair to place all BN politicians in the same broad basket. Some of them have quickly jumped onto the blog bandwagon perhaps none more so than Dr Mohd Khir Toyo, the former Selangor menteri besar.

He was one of the first BN leaders to start his own blog after the disastrous election results in his own state (http://www.drkhir.com/). He finds himself in the unfamiliar territory of being the leader of the opposition. His blog has quickly found traction among those Umno supporters who are unhappy with Pak Lah's administration.

Perhaps the most hated person in the Malaysian blogosphere, Khairy Jamaluddin, also has his own website (http://www.rembau.net.my/) which was started just before the March general elections. It will take more than his own website to counter all the negative posts on him in the blogosphere but a recent blog entry criticising MCMC's decision to block access to RPK's website garnered quite a bit of publicity both online and offline.

But both of them were superseded by Shahrir Samad. Long known as one of the more outspoken leaders within Umno, Shahrir started blogging when he was in political 'exile'. His then office in Sri Hartamas was emblazoned with the sign 'Shahrir-Umno' and his 'experience' on the Internet probably explains why he currently runs four websites, two of which are regularly updated (http://www.shahrir-umno.com/main.php, http://www.ahliparlimenjb.com/, http://umnojb.com.my/umnojb2008/, http://shahrirsamad.blogspot.com/, http://shahrirsamad.blogspot.com/).

Not all of Umno's forays into the blogosphere have been successful. Ali Rustam is probably Umno's only blogging menteri besar (http://www.mohdalirustam.com/) but he quickly found that cyberspace can be a very unforgiving place when a post criticising the Selangor Pakatan government for allowing a pig farm project approved by the outgoing BN government to go on was quickly inundated with negative comments. He has since disabled comments from his blog, one of the surefire ways to decrease readership.

Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah's foray into the blogosphere has also been uncertain. It is not clear that the one blog dedicated to Ku Li's activities (http://mykuli.blogspot.com/) is actually run by him. It comprises mostly of other blog posts about Ku Li and some news items covering his activities.

While it has received over 600,000 hits, there are very few comments following each post. Ku Li would generate much more traffic and attention to himself if he took a page out of Dr Mahathir's playbook by posting some entries actually written by himself instead of relying purely on secondary sources.

Be my Facebook friend

If external political competition does not galvanise BN politicians to have a web presence, perhaps internal political competition might. It is instructive to note that almost all the main contenders for the top positions in the upcoming MCA party elections have their own websites or blogs.

Ong Tee Keat (left), the front-runner for the position of the president of MCA, has the most comprehensive website (http://ongteekeat.net/) featuring news items, his manifesto and regular blog post in both Chinese and English.

The other possible contenders for the positions of president and deputy president also have their own websites including Ng Yen Yen (http://www.drngyenyen.com/), Liow Tiong Lai (http://www.liowtionglai.com/English/Main.aspx) and Fong Chan Onn (http://www.fongchanonn.com.my/). Indeed, Fong's comments about the injustice of the recent ISA arrests were picked up from his own blog.

It is unlikely that the BN politicians will be able to overcome the lead of many of the opposition politicians, at least in terms of eyeballs. A majority of BN MPs still do not have an online presence despite the low barriers to entry. After all, it doesn't take much effort to start a blog. The opposition MPs, because of their relative youth and because of their younger staff, are much more attuned to the newest developments in cyberspace.

Take social networking for example. Only three BN MPs in Peninsular Malaysia have Facebook accounts (Mukhriz Mahathir, Shabery Cheek and Khairy Jamaluddin) compared to 21 opposition MPs.

Three opposition MPs, Anwar Ibrahim, Nurul Izzah and Lim Kit Siang, top the list of MPs with the greatest number of Facebook friends - 5,000 and counting. In contrast, someone set up a fake Facebook account for Pak Lah and he currently has seven Facebook friends.

The online advantage on the part of the opposition does not guarantee them electoral success. There is no replacing the 'offline' activities that are part and parcel of what political parties and politicians need to do - the constituency servicing, the face-to-face meetings, the ceramahs, and so on. But the Internet has become such a key component of the political battleground that any party that ignores its importance is likely to find itself handicapped.

The BN establishment will not 'get' the Internet anytime soon. But it might have to learn fast if it finds itself in the unfamiliar position of being in the opposition at the federal level and denied automatic coverage in the mainstream media. After all, necessity is the mother of invention.

---

ONG KIAN MING is a PhD candidate in political science at Duke University.

Sammyboy.Com Thread

Make Political Films of Malaysia to Inspire Singaporeans

I want to call on Singaporean film and video makers to produce on Mr. Anwar's Reformasi and Regime Changing, including General Election; By-Election; Protest; Trials; Arrests; etc in either documentary or movie or other formats. Screen in Singapore or put them online and distribute DVDs of them.

Singaporeans will be enlightened and inspired by these films and videos.

By making these films & videos, artists and activist will be contributing significantly to Singaporean reform.

Please do it and film 16.Sept.2008 ! :-) Don't miss it!


Sammyboy.Com Thread

Unblock his blog then detain him with ISA next day!

Singaporeans to help fight Malaysian Blog Ban
BN lifted ban:
http://malaysiakini.com/news/89516
Sammyboy.com new thread

What is the use of blocking internet these days? It does not work at all!

Badawi found out about this recently and learned.

Desperate last ditch move = ISA!

4 MORE DAYS Badawi!
4 MORE DAYS!

Raja Petra arrested under ISA
Andrew Ong | Sep 12, 08 1:27pm

Controversial blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin was arrested today under the Internal Security Act for allegedly being a threat to security, peace and public order.

MCPX

According to Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar, the 58-year old father of five would be detained under Section 73(1) of the ISA, which allows for detention of up to 60 days.

“The police will do an assessment during this period and if they feel he should be held more than 60 days, the police will then refer to me,” Syed Hamid was quoted as saying by The Star.

The minister also confirmed that the Sin Chew Daily, The Sun and Suara Keadilan were issued show cause letters. "They have been given a week to reply," he added.

Raja Petra's wife Marina Lee Abdullah (right) earlier told Malaysiakini that 10 police personnel from Bukit Aman came to their home in Sungai Buloh at about 1.10pm to arrest him.

When Malaysiakini contacted her at 1.25pm, the police personnel were still there. However, Raja Petra - popularly known by his initials RPK - was taken away to an unknown destination at 1.50pm. The police also confiscated some books and VCDs.

On Sept 6, Syed Hamid had warned that RPK, who edits the popular news portal Malaysia Today, could be charged under the ISA for comments allegedly insulting Islam and Prophet Muhammad.

The minister said several religious groups - Malaysian Islamic Development Department (Jakim), Yayasan Dakwah Islamiah Malaysia (Yadim), Federal Territory Islamic Religious Council (Maiwp) and Federal Territory Religious Department (Jawi) - had lodged police reports against him.

The groups had complained Raja Petra's comment in an article entitled 'I promise to be a good, non-hypocritical Muslim' allegedly used sentences that insulted Muslims.

The government ordered the blocking of the Malaysia Today website two weeks ago, but the ban was lifted yesterday.

The ban together with Syed Hamid's warning to invoke the ISA had sparked a public furore against government censorship of the Internet.

Opposition parties too accused Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's administration of attempting to gag the press in a bid to salvage his party's sinking popularity.

Second time under ISA

Raja Petra is also alleged to have allowed comments to appear on his website that degraded Islam and Prophet Muhammad in an article entitled "Not all Arabs are descendants of the Prophet".

This is the second time that RPK, a member of the Selangor royal family, has been detained under ISA, which allows for indefinite detention without trial.

His first arrest under the tough security law was on April 10, 2001. RPK was detained as part of a crackdown against reformasi activists in which nine others were also held.

At that time, he was webmaster for the now defunct FreeAnwar.com site.

Raja Petra was subsequently released after 53 days in detention. However, six of the reformasi leaders were eventually sent to the Kamunting Detention Centre in Taiping where they were detained for two years.

Charged earlier for sedition, defamation

The controversial blogger was earlier charged with sedition and defamation after linking Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife to the sensational murder of a Mongolian woman.

In that case, a close friend of the deputy premier - Abdul Razak Baginda - was charged with abetting the murder of 28-year-old Altantuya Shaariibuu, whose body was blown up with explosives.

Two police officers from an elite force, whose duties included guarding the prime minister and Najib, were also charged with the killing.

The ISA, which human rights groups have pushed to have abolished, provides for renewable two-year periods of detention without trial and is normally used against suspected terrorists.

It has also been used to lock up opponents of the government, and last year five Hindraf leaders were detained three weeks after mounting a mammoth rally in the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Nov 25.

A number of activists, including prominent fellow bloggers, were seen visiting Raja Petra's house this afternoon. Among them were lawyer Haris Ibrahim and Selangor executive councillor Ronnie Liu. (photo above)

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