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DAP calls for a national and world-wide boycott of PC Suria computers unless PC Suria apologises and withdraws its arbitrary and high-handed eviction order to malaysiakini which offends the spirit and culture of an information age Media Conference Statement 2 by Lim Kit Siang (Petaling Jaya, Saturday): DAP calls for a national and world-wide boycott of PC Suria computers unless PC Suria apologises and withdraws its arbitrary and high-handed eviction order to its tenant, Malaysiakini, on a completely spurious ground which offends the spirit and culture of an information age. Malaysiakini has been served with an order dated Jan. 22 to vacate its rented premises in Bangsar Utama by the end of February by landlord PC Suria because the online website "had been found involved in activities which contravene the laws of the country". This arbitrary eviction notice is most offensive and even obnoxious on many grounds Firstly, for being part of larger political agenda to shut down the Malaysian Internet news site, clamp down on nascent Malaysian freedom of speech and expression online and violate the MSC Bill of Guarantee of no Internet censorship; Secondly, deliberate distortion of and contempt for the rule of law, as no court of law had adjudged Malaysiakini guilty of being "involved in activities which contravene the laws of the country". Thirdly, most serious of all, for being totally alien to the spirit and culture of the information age. PC Suria is a sole distributor of what has been marketed as the national computer produced by Perbadanan Komputer Nasional Bhd (Nascom)., a government-backed enterprise formerly known as PC Malaysia Bhd., formed in 1997 to produce a "smart" national computer. Nascom, which manufactures about 60,000 units of PC a year, claims to have a foothold in Malaysia's personal computer market. According to a recent media report, Nascom exports 90 per cent of its computers, and expects to register more than RM1 billion in sales this year. Recently, the company teamed up with Italian-based C.M.S. SpA, which owns Olivetti, to produce computers for the European and part of the African markets. If Malaysia has produced its first national computer, PC Suria, and there is even a market arrangement to market the computer from 18,000 Olivetti outlets throughout Europe, this should be a feather in the national IT cap and a matter of national pride. This is not the case however if the PC Suria is in the very thick of the plot to kill off nascent Malaysian freedom of speech and expression online and violate the MSC Bill of Guarantee of no Internet censorship by aiding and abetting UMNO Youth to shut down Malaysiakini. Then it is a subject of national infamy and should become an object of national obloquy as it confronts all Malaysians with undoubtedly the biggest question in the era of information and communications technologies - what is the purpose of the information age, to use ICT to empower the people or to hold them in greater subjection and tyranny? It is most unbelievable that UMNO Youth could add insult to injury by calling on the police to charge the Malaysiakini editor-in-chief, Steven Gan, under the Sedition Act "to teach them a lesson". The people who should be "taught a lesson" is UMNO Youth, which in the past 15 years had been responsible for three most disgraceful, shameful and downright gangsterish episodes not befitting a responsible, nationalistic and patriotic political body. UMNO Youth stands out in Malaysia as the political youth wing in Malaysia with the worst record whether on press freedom or human rights. In fact, it even failed to defend the human right to live of Malaysians, in particular urban Malays who are the most vulnerable population group in the raging worst dengue epidemic in the nation's history with the death toll in three digits. Whatever record of UMNO Youth on press freedom is a history to suppress and stifle the freedom of speech, expression, opinion, information and a free press and not to help widen the frontiers of freedom for a responsible and independent press or expand space for free speech and expression. UMNO Youth's latest addition to its catalogue of human rights violations in trampling on freedom of speech, expression, opinion and a free press, is its police report against malaysiakini resulting in the high-handed police raid on the Malaysian internet news site and the removal of its 19 computers to try to effectively shut down its operation. All youth wings, including the other Barisan Nasional youth wings, should teach UMNO Youth "a lesson" in democracy and human rights by publicly dissociating themselves from the UMNO Youth's latest trampling of freedom of speech, expression, opinion, information and a free press. I challenge UMNO Youth to state what it had done to stand up for free speech and a free press, for its record is a total blank as it had done absolutely nothing for freedom of speech, expression, opinion, information and a free press. (25/1/2003) * Lim Kit Siang, DAP National Chairman