Malaysian Court Jails Foreign Journalist for Contempt
International Herald Tribune
September 13, 1999
Thomas Fuller

A Canadian journalist has been sentenced by Malaysia's Court of Appeal to six weeks in prison for contempt of court.

Murray Hiebert, bureau chief for the Far Eastern Economic Review, a regional magazine published by Dow Jones & Co., was taken to prison Saturday two hours after being sentenced.

The case marked the first time in Malaysia a reporter was imprisoned for contempt over something he had written, according to Mr. Hiebert's lawyers.

Mr. Hiebert's conviction stems from an article he wrote about a woman who sued a high school in Kuala Lumpur after her son was kicked off the debating team.

The article, titled "See You in Court," addressed the growing number of court cases in Malaysia.

A judge in 1997 ruled that Mr. Hiebert's article "scandalized" the court and was "calculated to excite prejudice against the plaintiff." Mr. Hiebert was sentenced to three months in prison, but filed for appeal. The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction Saturday but lightened the sentence.

Mr. Hiebert, 50, is appealing Saturday's decision to the country's highest court but is serving the sentence because he wants to join his wife and family, who have moved to Washington, his next posting for the Review. The court refused to return his passport during the appeals process, and the final appeal could take one or two more years.

Mohammed Shafee Abdullah, one of Mr. Hiebert's lawyers, said the last case of a journalist being sent to prison for media contempt in Commonwealth countries, which share a common legal heritage, was in 1950.

Human rights groups said over the weekend that the case would undermine freedom of speech in the country.

"In our country where journalists are already severely constrained in conducting their duties, Hiebert's conviction will serve to remind other journalists that press freedom is an illusion here," said Elizabeth Wong, coordinator of Suaram, one of the country's most vocal human rights associations.

A. Lin Neumann of the Committee to Protect Journalists said the decision had a "chilling effect on other journalists who may write on sensitive subjects in Malaysia." He added: "We believe no reporter should ever go to jail for what he or she writes."

Mr. Hiebert's case is one of many legal actions faced by Dow Jones in Malaysia. The company's regional daily, The Asian Wall Street Journal, is being sued for 200 million ringgit ($53 million) by Mirzan Mahathir, the son of the prime minister, Mahathir bin Mohamad. The suit concerns a profile the paper did of Mr. Mirzan in January.

The Journal is also being sued by Vincent Tan, a Malaysian businessman, over an opinion piece written by a university professor.

And Raphael Pura, a reporter for the Journal based in Kuala Lumpur, is being sued for 40 million ringgit over an article that appeared in a London-based publication that quoted Mr. Pura in terms critical of the Malaysian judiciary.

A spokeswoman for Dow Jones said in a statement that the company was "deeply disappointed" with Mr. Hiebert's sentence and that neither Mr. Hiebert nor the Review "had any intention to attack either the courts of Malaysia or the litigants in any particular case." Mr. Hiebert has spent 13 years at the Review, reporting, among other places, from Vietnam and Thailand. He is author of "Chasing the Tigers: A Portrait of the New Vietnam."

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