300 people out of job….

… because malaysia were ashamed to the world.

… because the sensitivities of muslims were not respected.

300 people, including the toilet cleaner, the office boy, the security guard, the general cleaner, the accounts clerk… who would have nothing to do with the cartoons caricatures…

… these 300 people who are… er… were staff of the sarawak tribune, where the cabinet had made its decision to suspend it’s publication permit.

the information minister, abdul kadir had said that the absence of sarawak tribune in sarawak did not man there would be less news in the state because the public could obtain news from the other newspapers, radio and teleivsion.

yeah right… why highlight such a trivial matter? what does it matter anyway? what about the absence of sarawak tribune means 300 people would be out of job? obviously they (cabinet) didn’t realise that. obviously they were not sensitive enough to realise through their action, innocent people suffered.

well if sarawak tribune had been suspended for a week or two only, at least the staff would have hope of working again but i doubt it. the suspension might be over a very long period (after all abdul kadir had already stated, people can read other paper… there’s the hint there).

do you know apart from the suspension, the internal security minister (that is our dear PM) also also:
issued a blanket prohibition in the whole country starting today on the printing, import, production, circulation, distribution or possession of the Sarawak Tribune publication which undermine public order, security and national interest or which may disturb the minds of the people.
(copied from bernama news)

“disturb the minds of people”. haha. the people’s minds are so easily disturbed? is this like an insult to the people or what?

UPDATED 2/11/2006 02:25:00 AM: as regards tp the above about minds easily distrubed, a cairo headmaster said it so aptly (first article, enttitled ‘islam and free speech’. scroll down and down until 2nd last paragraph), “what it shows is that we lack confidence. if we were confident about our faith we wouldn’t have to react so hysterically.” yeah, if you are confident, why you worry so much about what others think of your faith (negatively)?

dr jacob george echo exactly my sentiments when he asked “why punish all because of one?”.
while the 70 editorial staff of the sarawak tribune stated that this move was so sudden and it would affect their livelihood (see, i told you so… them and other over 200 non editorial staff), the editorial adviser, idris buang said “they have been loyal to sarawak press all this while so we will not leave them to suffer. our actions pertaining to the fate of the staff will be in full compliance with the labour laws and corporate practice.”. hmm… really? that remain to be seen.