In Malaysia, Tolerance Goes Way of Economy : VOICES OF DISSENT ARE FADING IN 2 ASIAN COUNTRIES In Malaysia, Tolerance Goes Way of Economy 
International Herald Tribune
April 7, 1998
Thomas Fuller

It has been 11 years since Lim Guan Eng sat in a windowless interrogation room with a bright light shining in his face and a policeman shouting in his ear every time he nodded off to sleep.

He recalls the dark blue walls padded with asbestos — to ensure that detainees did not commit suicide by knocking their heads against them. And he remembers the twisted expression of a furious interrogator who destroyed furniture in front of him with his bare hands to show his frustration with the pace of the questioning.

Mr. Lim, a leading member of Malaysia's parliamentary opposition, has reason to refresh his memories of 18 months in detention. He might be heading back to jail soon.

Last week he was sentenced to another 18 months in prison for distributing a political pamphlet, a decision he has appealed to the country's highest court. If the appeal fails, he will be the first Parliament member in Malaysia to be sent to prison.

Although the reasons for the sentence last week differ from those in 1987 — when he was detained without trial as a "threat to national security" — both times that Mr. Lim has been sent to jail, Malaysia's economy has been in a rut.

Over the last few months, as the region's economic crisis has filtered into everyday life with rising prices and layoffs, the government's tolerance of dissent has appeared to evaporate slowly. Nearly every week a government minister or police chief has threatened to use the country's Internal Security Act, which calls for detention without trial, against anyone who spreads rumors about the economy, incites racial strife, aggravates air pollution by burning trash outdoors or, most recently, helps illegal immigrants enter the country.

During the weekend, the government used the act to detain 20 bureaucrats who were suspected of helping forge identification cards. Officials did not say when the suspects would be released, but judging from previous cases, including Mr. Lim's, they could be held from a few weeks to several years.

The government has also admonished the media in recent months to present stories in a positive light. Newspaper editors say that directives from the government on what should be covered in the press and how have become almost routine, resulting in increasing levels of self-censorship.

"The government is using very successfully the weapons of fear and intimidation," Mr. Lim said in an interview last week after he spent a night in jail. "They've managed to frighten the population away from taking a stand on issues of importance such as accountability, transparency and more democracy and freedom."

For Mr. Lim, 38, it is not the number of people who have been detained by the government that is important — very few people of his generation have experienced interrogation in the blue room. Rather, it is the climate of fear that he says has evolved among opposition politicians, journalists and ordinary Malaysians.

"Self-censorship has been refined into such an art that the censors couldn't do a better job," he said.

Mr. Lim was convicted last year of charges arising from the publication in 1995 of a pamphlet titled "The True Story."The document, which was photocopied and distributed to a few thousand people, criticized the government's decision not to press statutory rape charges against a former senior government official.

The pamphlet questioned why the schoolgirl involved in the scandal — she was 15 at the time — was detained in the case, but not the official, who was then regarded as a protégé of Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad.

Mr. Lim was convicted of sedition and printing "false news." His original sentence, handed down last year, called for a 15,000 ringgit fine, which at the time was equal to $6,000. Last Wednesday, the Court of Appeals in Kuala Lumpur dismissed Mr. Lim's two appeals and sentenced him instead to two 18-month concurrent prison terms.

If his new appeal fails, Mr. Lim will be disqualified from his seat in Parliament.

In announcing the decision, Judge Gopal Sri Ram said: "It is time that the court sends a clear message that it cannot tolerate any attack on the judiciary." The prosecutor in the case defended the sentence, saying that it was not politically motivated. "We do not need advice from any political party or political leader, including the prime minister, in making decisions or handling cases," said Mohtar Abdullah, the country's attorney general.

But in the days following the decision, voices from inside and outside Malaysia criticized the verdict — as well as the notion that verdicts themselves could not be criticized.

As for Mr. Lim, he questions why he has been singled out, when others, notably the prime minister's daughter, have been equally critical of the government's handling of the case.

Marina Mahathir wrote in a newspaper column a few months after the sex allegation broke: "It seems to me to be a gross mockery of justice that she is the one being charged for illicit sex." Mr. Lim said he agreed with what Ms. Marina said in reference to the schoolgirl, but asked why she was not prosecuted for her views in the column.

"Is it because we have different fathers?" he asked. Mr. Lim's father, Lim Kit Siang, is the leader of the opposition party and often an outspoken government critic.

Father and son share top posts in their party, the Democratic Action Party, a fact that led Mr. Mahathir recently to suggest that they practiced nepotism.

"What Guan Eng has received from my nepotism," replied the elder Mr. Lim last week, "are not business opportunities, mega-contracts and mega-loans, but a crown of thorns, the destruction of his political life as well as putting in jeopardy his own public life and the welfare of his family and children."

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