RantingsbyMM blog by Marina Mahathir, has always been on my feed reader list. Never did paid much attention on her writings, but her recent post “Do Malaysian Hate Blacks?” caught my interest.

The blog post refers to an article on Malay Mail, Victims of Hate by Teoh El Sen and Aizat Sharif on September 23, 2008.

Here are some snippets form the news article: –

In Sunday’s incident, HELP University College business studies undergraduate Abdel Aziz was murdered. He sustained stab wounds to the right abdomen and died in the ambulance on the way to Kuala Lumpur Hospital.

Malay Mail learnt the drama unfolded when three undergraduates were on the way to board the LRT to perform terawih prayers at a nearby mosque at 8.30pm.

They were confronted by some 20 youths who were believed to have hurled abuse at them and demanded money.

When the trio ignored them and walked away, the youths, carrying switch blades, pursued them and struck one of them on the head.

The students took refuge at the LRT station and sought assistance from their African friends living nearby.

Seven of their friends, including Abdel Aziz, went to their aid and together they went back to where the trio was attacked.

Abdel Aziz’s cousin, Abdraman Moussa Mohamat, 23, said: “We asked the youths who were seated at the stalls why they had attacked our friends but they came for us suddenly without saying a word.

“We ran for our lives when they began swinging metal rods, sticks and knives at us. In the fracas, Abdel Aziz was stabbed from the back.”

The mob fled after Abdel Aziz collapsed by the roadside some 15 metres from the stalls.

It’s not the article that caught my attention, but the response from RantingsbyMM blog post. She doesn’t jump to conclusions. She’s already there. So does her readers.

Did she actually read the article and what she had posted?

Why do they, MarinaM and her readers blame it on racism when it is clearly a gangsterism issue. It amaze me of how fast UMNO and other political group was dragged into the discussion.

Let me recap what was written on the Malay Mail article: -

When the trio ignored them and walked away, the youths, carrying switch blades, pursued them and struck one of them on the head.

The students took refuge at the LRT station and sought assistance from their African friends living nearby.

Seven of their friends, including Abdel Aziz, went to their aid and together they went back to where the trio was attacked.

So they went back?! Why would they went back? “itu nak cari gaduh namanya“. Were they looking for a fight? Why didn’t they went to the police and report the incident?

I guess due to the bad press Malaysian police have been getting from bloggers, they decides to take matters to their on hand.

Come on Malaysian bloggers and blog readers, THINK before you judge something you read something either from the media or from the internet.

Maybe this is why an increasing number of bloggers are detain by the ISA.

I am not saying that I am fine with these incidents happening in Malaysia. Such thing should not have happened in the first place. To add fuel to the fire, most of us blame racism or it is some sort of political agenda.

One may think that this sort of thing only happen in countries with oppressive governments such as Egypt, China, Saudi Arabia and Iran. However, if you take a look at the uploaded spreadsheet, you’ll see there are bloggers arrested in countries such as Canada, France, Greece and even the U.S.

Blogging is not a crime, but that doesn’t mean that bloggers are not criminals. Although most of the time these bloggers are being arrested due to publishing blog posts on sensitive political issues, but some of them were arrested due to alleged terrorism or pedophilia (child pornography). These are clearly against the law.

So next time when your local blogger is being arrested, it’s better for you to find out what the blogger is being arrested for, before you go all gung ho weaving the rights-to-free-speech flag around and saying that the government is trying to silence bloggers.

Our local blogosphere, the Malaysian blogosphere had seen its fair share of bloggers being arrested or sued. I think the problem here is that sometime blog posts are not that clear whether its the blogger’s assumption or that its something they claim to be a fact.

I mean you could say that you strongly think or that you strongly believe that a certain politician orchestrated the murder of a certain foreign model in order to cover up some shady dealings of some military vessel, and published it on your blog. I don’t think you will get in trouble for that.

However to say that you know for a fact, and that you have undeniable proof that such thing did happen, and you published that on your blog, you better have the proof ready to back you up when they come knocking on your door.

The fact that some bloggers in Malaysia had been arrested by the ISA is a good thing. This means that our government is actually reading our blogs and they are taking blogs seriously.

Then again, one should never take the Interweb too seriously.