Malaysian Blog Defamation Suit Impossible To Defend

Rocky’s Bru lawyers told reporters that the defamation suit is impossible to defend.

Ahirudin, who writes the “Rocky’s Bru” blog (rockybru.blogspot.com) is being sued along with another well-known blogger, Jeff Ooi of “Screenshots,” (JeffOoi.com) for a series of items published on their blogs last year that were deemed defamatory.

“What Rocky is contending is that with the claim the way it is, it is impossible to know how to adequately defend himself,” his lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar told reporters at the Civil Court.
“What we are arguing is that the claim must specifically set out which phrase relates to which meaning so that we can know how to defend it,” he said.

Ahirudin, a former executive editor of the Malay Mail, a newspaper within the NSTP stable, until he left in 2006, said the blog was set up to share his views, with no “negative agenda.”

“I think the blog offers me a channel to say general things and when you write something, you start with something you know… and that’s what I have been doing,” he told reporters.

“After a while it became a watchdog for the media.”

This is as Jeff Ooi said, is uncharted waters. No matter what happens, life will goes on for all other bloggers. The outcome could have a big impact on freedom of expression in the Malaysian blogging world. Now a fair hearing is what’s needed. If anyone found guilty, that’s the court to decide, that’s if the defendant fails to strike out the case anyway.

Read more