ELECTORAL watchdog Bersih has urged Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim to honour his pledge to defend speech and media freedoms in Malaysia, following the government’s move to block access to the UtusanTV.com website .

It said the new administration was acting like the Najib Razak government, which has censored portals, including the Bersih website, that were critical of the government.

“UtusanTV.com site must be unblocked,” the Bersih steering committee said in a statement today.

Bersih said during the Najib administration, Pakatan Harapan (PH) was denied access to government media platforms. Any reports that filtered through were skewed and unflattering, it said.

It was reported yesterday that the government had blocked access to UtusanTV.com.

A notice was posted on the website with the message “This website is not available in Malaysia as it violates the national law”.

It did not state which law the website had breached.

UtusanTV is run by Utusan Binders Sdn Bhd, a former subsidiary of Utusan Group.

Bersih said another news portal, MalaysiaNow, was blocked on June 28-30.

“In this day and age of social media accessibility, it is futile for any government to try and restrict their opponents.

“Instead, the Madani government should lead the way to promote open and public discourse on government-owned media so that Malaysians can judge for themselves the merits of competing views and ideologies.”

Bersih said should there be any concerns about the content on a media report, there must be a transparent process with a show-cause letter and appeal opportunity before the site is blocked.

It said free and fair access to public media by all political parties is a cornerstone of democracy but Malaysia has never witnessed such fair play during elections.

“The Pakatan Harapan-led unity government continues to treat government-owned public broadcast media as its private assets and deny critical views by the opposition from being aired.”

Bersih said it is hoped that in the last few days before elections in six states, government-owned media such as Bernama and RTM would give free airtime to all parties.

This would allow the coalition leaders to talk about their manifestos and debate one another.

It reminded PH that it had promised press freedom and to repeal of draconian laws such as the Sedition Act 1948, Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, and Printing Press and Publications Act 1984 which could be abused to restrict speech.

Malaysia Now and Malaysia Today had recently complained that their sites were blocked by the authorities. The news outlets are known to carry articles critical of the federal government.

Last week former MP Wee Choo Keong’s blog was also blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.  – August 8, 2023.