NST Editor Should Be Suspended, Says Tun Mahathir
Bernama – 24 Feb. 2006
PUTRAJAYA - Former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said Thursday that the editor of the New Straits Times should be suspended for "two to three months" for publishing twice a comic strip linked to the controversy over the Prophet Muhammad caricatures.

"Although the newspaper is not suspended, the editor should be suspended. Because one can see that when he prints it, he doesn't understand the feelings of the Muslims," he told reporters here.

Dr Mahathir said by taking action against the newspaper, the government would drive home the point that if a media organisation did something wrong, they would not escape from being punished.

The 160-year old newspaper, one of the region's oldest, on Wednesday received a show-cause letter from the Internal Security Ministry over a syndicated Non Sequitur cartoon by Wiley Miller. It shows a street artist sitting on a chair next to a sign reading: "Caricatures of Muhammad While You Wait".

It was given three days to give reasons in writing why action should not be taken against it for publishing the cartoon in its Life & Times section on Monday.

The newspaper reprinted the cartoon on Wednesday on page 2 of its main section with a comment that if the cartoon has transgressed the limits, the government must hold it accountable because no one nor any newspaper should get away with insulting any religion.

Dr Mahathir described the newspaper as insensitive in reproducing the comic strip.

"They are very insensitive and they should be sensitive because they know this story is not something out of the blue," he said of the caricatures which enraged the Muslim world after they were first published in Danish and European newspapers.

"So, why do you publish it (the comic strip). It shows that you lack understanding of the sentiments of the Muslims. And again they reproduce it yesterday as if to say that what is so wrong about this."

The former prime minister said: "To ask the public that question, 'Look this is what we publish, what is so wrong about it?' is already evidence that you don't understand. And you reproduce the comic strip at the same time."

Several organisations have lodged police reports against the newspaper for its cartoon flap.

Dr Mahathir said that in taking any possible action against the newspaper, the government would demonstrate that "it doesn't differentiate between newspapers which support it and those which are neutral".

"If you have done wrong, action will be taken and the action has to be consistent," he said, referring to the suspension of the Sarawak Tribune and Guang Ming newspapers for reproducing the caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.

Dr Mahathir was also asked on the argument that the News Straits Times did not reprint the actual caricatures of Prophet Muhammad.

"But to say that somebody is sitting there and for some money, I will make a caricature (of the Prophet), that means you are saying that this is all right (when it is not)," he said of the comic strip.
Source: Bernama | www.bernama.com