Malaysian blogger under attack for whistleblowing

Jeff Ooi's Screenshots is a popular blog in Malaysia for its mudracking reports. He has managed to get under the nerves of some high profile people/politicians and the mainstream media with his revelations.

His most recent exposure has been about how New Straits Times had carried a cartoon strip ridiculing the Prophet Muhammad's cartoon debacle.

Arising from his blogs, NST came very close to face actions by the government for stirring up racial sentiments in the country. However the daily publicly apologised for its error and terminated the publication of Wiley Miller’s Non Sequitur syndicated cartoon.

This is not the first time Jeff Ooi has provoked NST with his blogs. He had previous run ins with the daily and its editors. However this time NST did not just keep quite. It lodged a police report against Jeff Ooi, for allegedly inciting racial disharmony over the cartoon strip published in the daily.

While the police are investigating Jeff Ooi over this matter, his blog has come under attack from unknown sources. The denial of service attacks began on Sunday and has continued overnight. Jeef Ooi has decided to bring down his blogsite to allow the experts to perform a thorough digital forensic investigation. He believes his site will be down for about 72 hours.

Now, who is the culprit attacking Jeff Ooi's site? Is it an individual or a group, working alone or a concentrated effort backed by someone?

While we can only speculate as to the identity of the culprit(s), the double pronged attack on Jeff Ooi - police probe and blog hacking - only proves that whistleblowers are not endeared in Malaysia.

On the police action against Jeff Ooi, Opposition Leader Lim Kit Siang suggests that if the police probe Jeff Ooi for his blog on the NST cartoon, then similar action must also be taken against others who also criticised NST over that publication. And this involves some very big names.

As Kit Siang said:

"... action should also be taken against those who appeared to be like-minded with Jeff Ooi that NST should be penalized for the cartoon, which would include former Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, at least two Cabinet Ministers namely Education Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and Information Minister Datuk Zainuddin Maidin and UMNO Youth."

Will the police extent their probe to include all these parties? More importantly will they also dig into the blatant attacks on Jeff Ooi's blog by the unknown persons to see if these attacks are directly linked to his blogs on the NST cartoons?

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