Conjecture, nothing but conjecture

So, Zulkifli Ahmad @ Citizen Watch, we took pains (literally as well) to ensure that Malaysia Today’s readers would not only have fast access but also uninterrupted access to Malaysia Today. So, when other sites suffered overload or DDOS attacks, Malaysia Today remained problem free.

NO HOLDS BARRED

Raja Petra Kamarudin

Zulkifli Ahmad @ Citizen Watch commented in Malaysia Today as follows:

The post RPK TV3 interview was cause for people to pause and ponder. After seeing Malaysia Today still in operation in runup to Sarawak election while Malaysiakini and Sarawak Report had the full brunt of the BN cyber attack one wonders about possible deals struck to get MT to be still up and running during that period. MT was blocked during GE12. Hence, can there be another deal struck where the police will say that they will carry out investigation as that’s the deal RPK harped on to justify the damaging TV3 interview.

The TV3 interview was supposed to be used during the GE13 but unexpectedly BN had to expedite the airing during the Sarawak election as the situation was dire there. Now RPK and MCLM are under pressure to keep whatever credibility and MT readers left to do another Zaid and ‘RPK TV3’ on Anwar and PR just before the GE13.

To be duplicitous and disingenous is worse than a leader who is claimed to be losing his credibility through incompetence. And being imcompetent is not a crime unless leading to gross negligence in certain aspects that can be a civil law matter. But duplicity can cause wars and hardship. Anwar has been assailed from all sides and bound to stumble at times. But he is the one who can lead the PR to Putrajaya despite his foibles.

Malaysia Today was set up in 2004 to encourage freedom of speech. It was set up to allow Malaysians a platform to express their opinions and comments about current affairs in Malaysia — social, economic and political.

Also in 2004, I had a heated argument with some PKR leaders. This happened during the PKR Convention in Ipoh. The conflict got so bad that I had a punch-up with Anwar Ibrahim’s bodyguards. I punched one of the bodyguards in front of Anwar, Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, and the then party Sec-Gen, Mustapha Kamil Ayub.

Anwar’s intervention prevented a ‘blood bath’. Wan Azizah was screaming with panic because she was sure one of us was going to end up in hospital. Anwar quickly held back the bodyguard, more worried what I would do to him than the other way around.

At that time, I was the editor of the party newspaper, Seruan Keadilan. I resigned from Seruan Keadilan on the spot and Datuk Kamarul Baharin Abbas tried to mediate and to convince me to stay on. I told Kamarul I have made up my mind and that I am going to focus fully on Malaysia Today — which had been launched barely a few of months before that — and do what Seruan Keadilan would not allow me — that is, to criticise BOTH the government AND the opposition.

But I would still support the opposition and uphold my aspiration to see a strong two-party system emerge in Malaysia — which I did over the last seven years since I started Malaysia Today, and campaigned in every election and by-election since (until, of course, 2009, when I left the country).

My disagreement with the party actually started long before that when Anwar Ibrahim was still in jail. The party was not happy with my editorials. I used to receive memos from Anwar sent from the Sungai Buloh Prison chiding me for my editorials that were not only critical of and uncomplimentary to the party, PKR, but also to the opposition in general.

Anwar removed me as chief editor and someone else was placed above me. I was also barred from further writing the editorials. This task was handed over to another person. Nevertheless, my wife and I stayed on to work as ‘staff’ with no more executive powers, until 2004.

My punch-up with Anwar’s bodyguards in Ipoh in 2004 was not the first incident. An earlier punch-up happened during Nurul Izah’s wedding. This was because Nurul’s bodyguards refused to allow me to take photographs of the wedding, which they said was on the orders of Azmin Ali.

I was not there on my own accord. I had been ordered by Datuk Kamarul to take the wedding photographs for the party newspaper and he said he wanted two pages of colour photos for the centre-spread. But the bodyguards refused to let me into the wedding.

When I tried taking some photographs from the outside, I was roughly shoved aside by the bodyguards. I retaliated and threw a punch. Raja Komando (Raja Kamaruddin Raja Wahid), who was the head bodyguard, had to quickly intervene to prevent the wedding from being turned into a barroom brawl.

So when the Ipoh incident happened, my second punch-up with the bodyguards, I called it a day and moved on although I still supported PKR and PR.

So we are not talking about a sudden ‘U-turn’ or change of stance here. My stand has always been one of being allowed to be critical of both sides of the political divide. And when the party newspaper would not allow me to do this, I decided to break with the party newspaper and continue doing what I want to do in Malaysia Today instead.

The only reason my criticism is more ‘visible’ now than before is because, after more than ten years of criticising the opposition and its leaders, this is the first time it was featured on national television.

This can only mean one thing. Most opposition supporters read the mainstream government-owned newspapers and watch the news on the government-owned TV stations more than they read the opposition online media and Blogs. If not they would have known that what I say now I have always been saying.

In fact, if you were to go to the Free Anwar Campaign (FAC) website (www.freeanwar.com), you will see that even on this Anwar website my articles are critical of the opposition and its leaders. And the FAC website (which is still there) was set up 11 years ago in 2000.

So, Zulkifli Ahmad @ Citizen Watch, get your facts right. You are commenting based merely on conjecture and not on facts or evidence.

With regards to why Malaysia Today was still up and running when all other sites were down during the Sarawak state election, it would have been better if you had asked me why rather than make accusations, again, based on conjecture.

As soon as the Sarawak state assembly was dissolved, we set up additional servers to take the load off the servers. The problem we were going to face is overload (due to too many hits) and DDOS attacks (which is our main concern).

We spent a lot of money doing this and we absorbed the cost. We did not make our readers pay for this sudden surge in expenses.  We have been hit with DDOS attacks so many times that by now we know what to do.

We, in fact, offered to also help Sarawak Report and Radio Free Sarawak if they needed help. And we were not going to charge them for it. We would absorb the cost. I gave Clare Rewcastle the contact details of the technical team that was handling Malaysia Today.

We then monitored Malaysia Today 24-7. I practically sat in front of my notebook 16-18 hours a day and hardly slept much. This also aggravated my spinal injury and I had to ‘shoot’ myself with painkillers three times a day. (Now you know why I have been short-tempered in my responses. The pain is excruciating.)

So, Zulkifli Ahmad @ Citizen Watch, we took pains (literally as well) to ensure that Malaysia Today’s readers would not only have fast access but also uninterrupted access to Malaysia Today. So, when other sites suffered overload or DDOS attacks, Malaysia Today remained problem free.

There were, of course, moments when the panic button had to be pressed and our technical team had to scramble to fend off DDOS attacks or distribute access traffic to other servers. But because we moved so fast and so efficiently, you hardly noticed the short periods of ‘hang’ when you clicked the site and nothing happened (froze).

What you are saying, therefore, Zulkifli Ahmad @ Citizen Watch, is mere conjecture. And you are most unfair in your statement. We went to great lengths to ensure that Malaysia Today remained open for business when others had to close and move to a new site. And you attribute this to proof that I have sold out?

Honestly, with readers with a brain like you, I really don’t mind if you move on and boycott Malaysia Today. You clearly do not add value to Malaysia Today. Conjecture is not intelligent debate. And if you think that freedom of speech includes the freedom to call me a bastard, like some readers have done, then you do not deserve freedom of speech. This is like giving a flower to a monkey. And I am certainly not going to throw you peanuts.