Civil rights activists at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, 1963

Barricade at the Paris Commune, 1871

Activism consists of intentional efforts to promote, impede or direct social, political, economic, or environmental change. Activism can take a wide range of forms from writing letters to newspapers or politicians, political campaigning, economic activism such as boycotts or preferentially patronizing businesses, rallies, street marches, strikes, sit-ins, and hunger strikes.

Activists can function in roles as public officials, as in judicial activism. Arthur Schlesinger Jr. introduced the term "judicial activism" in a January 1947 Fortune magazine article titled "The Supreme Court: 1947."^[1]

Some activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than to persuade governments to change or not to change laws. The cooperative movement seeks to build new institutions which conform to cooperative principles, and generally does not lobby or protest politically, and clergymen often exhort their parishioners to follow a particular moral code or system.

As with those who engage other activities such as singing or running, the term may apply broadly to anyone who engages in it even briefly, or be more narrowly limited to those for whom it is a vocation, habit or characteristic practice. In the narrower sense environmental activists that align themselves with Earth First or Road Protestors would commonly be labelled activists, whilst a local community fighting to stop their park or green being sold off or built on would fit the broader application, due to their using similar means to similarly conservative ends. In short activism is not always an action by Activists.^[2]

Methods[link]

This article mainly consists of lists. The information may be better understood by either replacing or supporting with prose. You can help by consulting the relevant guideline and making appropriate changes or additions. Editing help is available. (February 2012)

The longest running peace vigil in US history, started by activist Thomas in 1981.

• Civil disobedience
• Community building
  • Activism industry
  • Conflict transformation
  • Cooperative movement
  • Craftivism
  • Voluntary simplicity
• Economic activism
  • Boycott
    • Veganism (boycott of animal usage)
    • Vegetarianism (boycott of animal meat usage)
  • Divestment (a.k.a. Disinvestment)
  • Simple living
  • Tax resistance
• Franchise activism
• Lobbying
• Media activism
  • Culture jamming
  • Hacktivism
  • Internet activism
• Nonviolence
• Peace activist and Peace movement
• Political campaigning
• Propaganda
  • Guerrilla communication
• Protest
  • Demonstration
  • Direct action
  • Protest songs
  • Theater for Social Change
• Strike action
• Youth activism
  • Student activism
  • Youth-led media

See also[link]

• Advocacy Evaluation
• Advocacy group
• Agitator
• Community leader
• Feminism
• Master Legend
• Restorationism
• Social engineering (political science)
• Social movement
• Virtual volunteering

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Paul Rogat Loeb, Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time (St Martin's Press, 2010). ISBN 978-0-312-59537-1.
• Randy Shaw, The Activist's Handbook: A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond (University of California Press, 1996). ISBN 0-520-20317-8.
• David Walls, The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America (Simon & Schuster/Fireside, 1993). ISBN 0-671-74634-0.
• Victor Gold, Liberwocky (Thomas Nelson, 2004). ISBN 978-0-7852-6057-8.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (September 2011)

Shekhar Suman
Shekhar Suman at Jhalak Dikhla Jaa Bash
Born	Patna, Bihar, India
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1985 - present

Shekhar Suman is an Indian film actor and a television personality. He has also been featured as a singer on a music album. Suman married Alka Kapur on May 4, 1984, and has a son, Adhyayan Suman a Bollywood film actor.

Career[link]

He started his Bollywood career with the film Utsav opposite Rekha in September 1985.

On television, he was featured in the shows Dekh Bhai Dekh, Reporter, Wah janab,'chote babu' Andaz,Amar Prem 'aaha', 'main' 'vilayati babu'Movers n Shakers, Simply Shekhar and Carry On shekhar. The last three were primarily modelled on and adapted from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He hosted Film Deewane The Great Indian Comedy Show on Star One until February 2006 and appeared in some episodes of Dial One aur Jeeto on Sahara TV. He also did quiz shows including Nilaam Ghar on Zee Television and He-Man on Star One. He also hosted a show on Star News, Poll Khol for five years, which was a satire on the Indian politics, Comedy Circus I, Comedy ka maha muqabala, and Perfect Bride.

He was one of the judges of The Great Indian Laughter Challenge along with Navjot Singh Sidhu. This programme, a stand-up comedy contest, was the first of its kind on Indian television. However, Shekhar quit after the end of the third season due to differences with Sidhu. He became the judge of a rival comedy program Comedy Circus. He also hosted the show Jab Khelo SAB Khelo on SAB TV. He can be seen on Sony TV as a participant in Jhalak Dikhlaja.

He made his singing debut with a music album named Kuch Khwaab Aise, a collection of eight love ballads whose music was composed by Aadesh Srivastava and lyrics written by Shyam Raj. In December 2009, he appeared as a participant on a reality TV series, Raaz Pichhle Janam Ka based on past life regression.^[1][2][3]

He has also appeared as a judge in the reality TV show Lux Perfect Bride.

Filmography[link]

This biographical section of an article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (December 2011)

Television[link]

Film[link]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Shekhar Suman at the Internet Movie Database

Aaron Swartz
Born	(1986-11-08) November 8, 1986 (age 25) Chicago, Illinois, United States
Occupation	Software developer, writer, Internet activist
Website
aaronsw.com

Aaron Swartz (born November 8, 1986) is an American programmer, writer, political organizer and Internet activist. He is best known in programming circles for co-authoring the RSS 1.0 specification. He received mainstream media attention after his federal indictment and arrest on 19 July 2011, for allegedly harvesting academic journal articles from JSTOR.^[1]

Swartz is the co-founder of Demand Progress and the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Early life and work[link]

Swartz was active in discussions of Internet standards from an early age, and co-authored the specification for RSS by the time he was 14.^{[citation needed]} Since then he has been a member of the W3C's RDF Core Working Group, co-designed the formatting language Markdown with John Gruber, and worked on many other projects.

Swartz attended Stanford University for a year, leaving to start the software company Infogami, a startup that was funded by Y Combinator's first Summer Founders Program. Infogami was built around a wiki backend, a subject of interest for Swartz since his early effort to develop theinfo, a wiki-based encyclopedia, in 2000.

Reddit and Open Library[link]

Within a year, Infogami merged with Reddit to form not a bug, though the latter group failed to take off. In late 2006, Reddit was sold to CondéNet (the online arm of Condé Nast Publications and the owners of Wired) and Swartz moved with his company to San Francisco. In January 2007, Swartz was asked to resign from his position at Wired Digital.^[2]

In September 2007, Swartz, together with Simon Carstensen, launched Jottit, a website service quite similar to Infogami. Jottit was launched from bitbots.net, a project by Swartz and Carstensen. Swartz is also the creator of the web.py web application framework, based on the Python programming language, which is used by Jottit (and previously reddit).

Swartz then went to work for the Internet Archive, serving as the software architect for the new Open Library project, building on work from infogami.

Politics and sociology[link]

Swartz is an active blogger and has written a number of essays on his blog. Two were "Who Writes Wikipedia",^[3] an article examining the contributions to Wikipedia articles written during his candidacy for the Wikimedia Foundation board election in 2006, and "HOWTO: Be More Productive",^[4] an article on personal productivity.

In recent years, Swartz has worked primarily on social analysis and political activism. He worked on watchdog.net, and serves on the board of Change Congress. In 2010 he became a fellow at Harvard University's Safra Center for Ethics.

Swartz co-founded Demand Progress, a progressive advocacy group that organizes people via email and other media for "contacting Congress and other leaders, funding pressure tactics, and spreading the word" about targeted issues.

Controversies[link]

PACER[link]

In 2009, Swartz downloaded and publicly released approximately 20% of the PACER database of United States federal court documents managed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts.^[5][6] He had accessed the system as part of a free trial of PACER at 17 libraries around the country, which was suspended "pending an evaluation" as a result of Swartz's actions. Those actions also brought him under investigation by the FBI, but the case was closed two months later with no charges being filed. ^[6]

JSTOR[link]

On Tuesday, 19 July 2011, Swartz was charged by U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts with wire fraud, computer fraud, unlawfully obtaining information from a protected computer, and recklessly damaging a protected computer, in relation to downloading roughly 4 million academic journal articles from JSTOR.^[7] According to the indictment against him, Swartz surreptitiously attached a laptop to MIT's computer network, which allowed him to "rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR."^[8] Prosecutors in the case claim Swartz acted with the intention of making the papers available on P2P file-sharing sites.^[9]

Swartz surrendered to authorities, pleading not guilty on all accounts, and was released on $100,000 bail.^[1] Prosecution of the case continues, with charges of wire fraud and computer fraud, resulting in a potential prison term of up to 35 years and a fine of up to $1 million USD.^[10] JSTOR put out a statement saying it would not pursue civil litigation against Swartz.^[1]

Jerry Cohen of Burns & Levinson said the government's choice to pursue criminal charges when JSTOR and MIT had resolved their civil concerns with Swartz reflected a trend of increasingly-zealous prosecution in federal courts.^[11]

On September 7, 2011, JSTOR announced it had released the public-domain content of its archives for public viewing and limited use. According to JSTOR, it had been working on making those archives public for some time, and the controversy, which involved, according to a press release, "an individual who was indicted for downloading a substantial portion of content from JSTOR, allegedly for the purpose of posting it to file sharing sites", impelled JSTOR to "press ahead" with the initiative.^[12]

Publications[link]

• Swartz, Aaron (Jan–Feb 2002.). "MusicBrainz: A Semantic Web Service". IEEE Intelligent Systems 17 (1): 76–77. DOI:10.1109/5254.988466. ISSN 1541-1672. 
• Swartz, Aaron and Hendler, James “The Semantic Web: A Network of Content for the Digital City”, Proceedings of the Second Annual Digital Cities Workshop, Kyoto, Japan, October 2001.
• Gruber, John and Swartz, Aaron. Markdown definintion, December 2004.

References[link]

External links[link]

Find more about Aaron Swartz on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	News stories from Wikinews

• Official website

11 April 2008, Phoenix, Ariz.

For the New York politician, see J. Raymond McGovern.

Raymond McGovern (born 1939) is a retired CIA officer turned political activist. McGovern was a Federal employee under seven U.S. presidents over 27 years, presenting the morning intelligence briefings at the White House for many of them.

Post-retirement career and views[link]

Intelligence activism[link]

McGovern has been an outspoken commentator on intelligence-related issues since the late 1990s.^[1] He was heavily critical of the government's handling of the Wen Ho Lee case in 2000.^[2] In 2002 he was publicly critical of President George W. Bush's use of government intelligence in the lead-up to the war in Iraq.^[3]

In 2003, together with other former CIA employees, McGovern founded the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity or VIPS. The organization is dedicated to analyzing and criticizing the use of intelligence, specifically relating to the War in Iraq. In January 2006, McGovern began speaking out on behalf of the anti-war group Not in Our Name. According to the group's press release, McGovern served symbolic "war crimes indictments" on the Bush White House from a "people's tribunal."

McGovern has been outspoken in rejecting the official story of the 9/11 attacks and has joined the call for a new and independent investigation of 9/11.

Rumsfeld[link]

In May 2006, McGovern attended a speech by then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and, during the question-and-answer session, accused him of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence. McGovern challenged Rumsfeld on several statements which Rumsfeld was on the record for saying. McGovern asked him;

• "Why did you lie to get us into a war, which was not necessary and has caused these kinds of casualties?"
• "You said you knew where they [weapons of mass destruction] were."

• Rumsfeld: "I did not...I said I knew where suspect sites were."

• McGovern "You said you knew where they were: 'Near Tikrit, near Baghdad, and East, West, South and North somewhat'" (Rumsfeld denied using this language). Rumsfeld had added in the original statement in reference to one particular facility, "we saw from the air that there were dozens of trucks that went into that facility after the existence of it became public in the press and they moved things out. They dispersed them and took them away. So there may be nothing left. I don't know that. But it's way too soon to know."^[4]
• "Your allegation that 'there was bullet proof evidence' of ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq (Rumsfeld stated this on September 27, 2002 to the Chamber of Commerce in Atlanta, Georgia).^[5] Was that a lie or were you misled?"

• Rumsfeld "Zarqawi was in Baghdad during the prewar period...that is a fact."

• McGovern: "Zarqawi...he was in the North of Iraq in a place where Saddam Hussein had no rule. That's where he was."

• Rumsfeld "He was also in Baghdad."

• McGovern "Yeah, when he needed to go to the hospital...come on, these people [the surrounding press] aren't idiots."^[6]

"O.I.L."[link]

In a television interview with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, McGovern said: "I‘ve been using the acronym O.I.L. for many — for two years now: O for oil; I for Israel; and L for logistics, logistics being the permanent — now we say “enduring” — military bases that the U.S. wants to keep in Iraq."^[7]

McGovern testified at a Democratic National Headquarters forum in 2005 that had been convened by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) of the House Judiciary Committee on the Downing Street Memo.

The Washington Post reported that, in his testimony, McGovern "declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration 'neocons' so 'the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.' He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. 'Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,' McGovern said. Genuine criticism of official Israeli policy is often portrayed as if it were anti-Semite bigotry: 'The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.'"^[8]

McGovern described the incident with former Director of Central Intelligence James Woolsey in an article in CounterPunch:

I thought of the debate I had on Iraq with arch-neoconservative and former CIA Director James Woolsey on PBS' Charlie Rose Show on August 20, when I broke the taboo on mentioning Israel and was immediately branded "anti-Semitic" by Woolsey. Reflecting later on his accusation, it seemed almost OK since it was so blatantly ad hominem. And his attack was all the more transparent, coming from the self-described "anchor of the Presbyterian wing of JINSA" — the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, a strong advocate of war to eliminate all perceived enemies of Israel — like Iraq.^[9]

Arrested for Silent Protest at Clinton Speech[link]

During a speech on February 16, 2011, at George Washington University by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton he stood silently with his back turned during her remarks, leading to his arrest.^{[10] [11]}

On Julian Assange[link]

When asked on TVNZ whether Julian Assange was a hero or villain, he replied "Hero",^[12] and has co-written an open letter of support for WikiLeaks and Assange.^[13]

When asked whether Julian Assange was a journalist, he replied "Yeah, actually, with all due respect, I think you (the mainstream media) should be following his example.",^[14] to the CNN reporter.

Personal life[link]

McGovern has been married to Rita Kennedy for 42 years. Together they have five children and six grandchildren.

Articles[link]

• Ray McGovern, Mullen Wary of Israeli Attack on Iran, Antiwar.com, March 8, 2010.
• Ray McGovern, "Case Closed", Tom Paine, February 19, 2004.
• Ray McGovern, "Proof Bush Fixed The Facts," Tom Paine, May 4, 2005.
• Ray McGovern, Archive of McGovern's articles for Alternet, Alternet, 06/03-04/06.

Video[link]

• Ray McGovern speaks at Peace Action National Congress (July 2004) - 23 minutes
• Ray McGovern speaks at the John Marshall Law School In Chicago, IL (April 2006) - 52 minutes
• Ray McGovern speaks to TVNZ about WikiLeaks and Assange (Dec 2010) - 5 minutes
• Obama's and Brennan's "Kill List" - Ray McGovern: It is a moral and legal impossibility to square "kill lists" for extrajudicial killing with traditional legal and moral American values 13:56 with transcript

See also[link]

This section is empty. You can help by adding to it.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Radio interview on Progressive Radio
• Interview on TVNZ about Julian Assange
• Downloadable audio interview with Scott Horton
• The-war-at-home The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Audio and Transcript of Brad Show interview, June 11, 2005
• Truthdigger of the Week: Ray McGovern
• "Retired CIA Official Says Bush Is A War Criminal" (audio interview)
• Are U.S. Presidents Afraid of the CIA? by Ray McGovern, December 29, 2009
• "McGovern: Forged 'yellowcake' memo 'leads right back to' Cheney" (MSNBC Tucker Carlson Video)
• "Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Takes on Rumsfeld Over Justification for Iraq Invasion" May 5, 2006 Democracy Now
• "Q&A sessions with Ray McGovern" (News Video)
• "So Who's Afraid of the Israel Lobby?" October 5, 2007
• [1] February 17, 2011

Raja Petra Kamarudin
Prince of Selangor
Raja Petra Kamarudin (pictured July 2007) has been investigated by the police for comments posted on his website, Malaysia Today. In the background is Raja Petra's wife, Marina Lee Abdullah.
Born	(1950-09-27) 27 September 1950 (age 61)
Birthplace	Surrey, England
Consort to	Marina Lee Abdullah
Offspring	Raja Suraya Raja Azman Raja Shahril Raja Azmir Raja Sara
Royal House	Selangor
Father	Raja Kamarudin bin Raja Tun Uda
Mother	Che' Bariya Kamarudin (née Barbara Mabel Parnell)

Raja Petra bin Raja Kamarudin (born September 27, 1950)^[1] is a Malaysian editor known for running the Malaysia Today website and publishing a series of commentary articles on Malaysian politics in the website. He is sometimes referred to by the initials RPK.

He was detained for a second time under the Internal Security Act, at 1.10pm on 12 September 2008.^[2] On 7 November 2008, Raja, 58, was freed from detention after Shah Alam city High Court Justice Syed Ahmad Helmy Syed Ahmad granted his habeas corpus petition and ruled that his detention was illegal.^[3] The court noted that "the grounds for the detention order by Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar for the blogger did not fall under the scope of Section 8(1) of the ISA."^[4][5]

In May 2010 Cheras Umno Division Chairman Datuk Syed Ali Alhabshee called on the government to strip Raja Petra of his citizenship on the grounds that his activities could affect the peace of the country.^[6]

Personal life[link]

Born in Surrey, England, Raja Petra Kamarudin was educated at the Alice Smith School. At the age of 13 he went to further his studies at the Malay College Kuala Kangsar, completing his education at the Victoria Institution. As his father died when Raja Petra was 22, he began to support his mother and three younger siblings by working as a rice distributor and motorcycle dealer, introducing Yamaha and other Japanese motorcycle brands to the country.

In 1973 he married Marina Lee binti Abdullah, with whom he had five children.^[1]

Raja Petra is a member of the Selangor royal family. He is the nephew of the late Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, the eleventh Yang di-Pertuan Agong (King) of Malaysia and the seventh Sultan of Selangor.^[7] His paternal grandmother Tengku Badariah was the elder sister of Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah, the second Yang di-Pertuan Agong and the eighth Sultan of Selangor. His paternal grandfather, Raja Tun Uda Al-Haj Bin Raja Muhammad, KBE (1894–1976), a distant cousin of his wife's family, was twice Menteri Besar of Selangor during the colonial era, the first Yang di-Pertua Negeri of Penang (1957–1967) and Malaysian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom. His father, Raja Kamarudin bin Raja Tun Uda (1925–1971), studied law in the UK and worked for Unilever until his death. His mother, Che' Bariya Kamarudin (née Barbara Mabel Parnell) (1933–1980), is Welsh.^[7]

Political involvement[link]

Raja Petra was a leading member of Parti Keadilan Nasional (now Parti Keadilan Rakyat)—the party set up in response to the arrest of former Malaysian deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998.^[7] On 11 April 2001, Raja Petra and ten other opposition activists were detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for allegedly plotting to overthrow then prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad.^[1][7] He was released 52 days later.^[8]

Raja Petra started the Malaysia Today website and his blog to facilitate open discussion on Malaysia's political and social scenes. In his online writings, he is often humorous and sometimes critical of the current political developments in Malaysia. He advocates for transparency, accountability and justice in the Malaysian political system. He often denounces what he sees as deeply rooted money politics, corruption, and ethnic polarisation in Malaysia.^[9]

On 2 July 2008, Malaysia Today was defaced by a person known only as "Gasakdotnet", replacing the website with a superimposition of Mahathir Mohammad's face into the poster of the film We Were Soldiers accompanied by the tagline "My Countrymen, My Fellow Malaysians", alluding to Mahathir's "battle" for Malaysia as the Prime Minister from 1981 to 2003.^[10] Poor internet connectivity affecting several areas in Malaysia hampered efforts to restore the website promptly.

Second ISA detention[link]

Raja Petra filed a habeas corpus application at the High Court on 16 September 2008 seeking his release from detention under the ISA. On 22 September the Malaysian Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar signed an order to remand Raja Petra to the detention facility for up to two years under section 8 of the ISA. Ministerial orders for remand under section 8 cannot be challenged in court.^[11]

Raja Petra was held without trial under the ISA at the Kamunting Detention Center in northern Perak state, which had 60 ISA detainees, mostly suspected Islamic extremists. The ISA permits an initial detention of two months for investigation, followed by a two-year jail sentence which can be renewed indefinitely. The 1948 ISA is a holdover from British colonial rule, intended for use against communist insurgents. Raja Petra's wife Marina Lee Abdullah said: "(Police) said my husband has been sent to Kamunting this morning and that he will remain there for two years with no trial. This is the worst news I can receive but we will keep fighting for his release. This is dirty foul play by the government as they know that we are in the process of fighting for his release in the court but I was expecting this. Raja Petra was detained for allegedly 'insulting Islam' and publishing articles on his website which has tarnished the country's leadership to the point of causing confusion among the people." Raja Petra's lawyer sought his release in a court hearing but this was dismissed.^{[12][13][14][15]} Raja Petra's detention caused widespread protests by civil society groups, lawyers and other online commentators.

Meanwhile, in Kota Kinabalu, the United Pasokmomogun Kadazandusun Murut Organisation (Upko) led by its Secretary-General Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau, joined its three other Barisan Nasional (BN) counterparts MCA, Gerakan and MIC petitioning the Government review of the ISA. Madius said the party supports former de-facto Law Minister Datuk Zaid Ibrahim's position that the ISA should only be used against those who posed a threat to national security, such as terrorists: "Clearly in the case of Seputeh MP, Teresa Kok, Raja Petra Kamaruddin, and Sin Chew Daily reporter, Tan Hoon Cheng, there are so many other public order laws that can be used against them if, at all, there is a case to do so."^[16]

Controversies[link]

Muhammad Muhammad Taib[link]

On July 23, 2007, Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib, UMNO's Information Chief, lodged a police report against Malaysia Today at 12.57 p.m. at the Tun H.S. Lee police station, under Section 121 (B) and Section 123 of the Penal Code, Section 4 of the Sedition Act 1948 and Section 263 and Section 266 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, for a July 11 blog entry on the website deemed to contain writing that insult the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, degrade Islam and incite hatred and violence between local ethnic groups.^[17] Raja Petra Kamarudin responded by releasing an article on Malaysia Today, lashing back on Taib with allegations of hypocrisy and corruption. A second police report against Raja Petra was believed to be lodged after the release of the article, and Raja Petra was summoned to the Dang Wangi police station on July 25, 2007 for eight hours of questioning.^[18] His wife was also questioned for an hour.^[19]

After his release from questioning, Raja Petra gave his reason on why Muhammad Taib made a police report against him, stating the reason is that the government wished to silence the nations bloggers before the Malaysian general election.^{[citation needed]}

Universiti Utara Malaysia[link]

Raja Petra made headlines in end March 2008 when a Malaysian High Court ordered him in and the group chief editor and editor of PKR’s organ Suara Keadilan to pay a total of RM7 million to Universiti Utara Malaysia and its vice-chancellor Tan Sri Dr Nordin Kardi for libel.^[20][21]

Altantuya Shaariibuu[link]

Accusation of Najib Abdul Razak's involvement[link]

Raja Petra was charged on May 6, 2008 with sedition for allegedly implying that the Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak was involved in the sensational killing of a young Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaariibuu. Also charged for sedition was businessman Syed Akbar Ali, who had allegedly posted a seditious comment on Malaysia Today.^[22]

Raja Petra Raja Kamaruddin, who did not deny that he linked Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak to the slaying, pleaded innocent to the charge, and said he should have the right to hold the powerful accountable for wrongdoing. Raja Petra was taken to a detention center after he refused to post the bail of RM5,000. The court set the trial for October 6, 2008. If convicted, he faces up to 3 years in prison. "I am not posting bail. See you guys in October, I will be out for Christmas. Don't worry."^[23] His wife said she was "quite stunned" that Raja Petra refused to post bail, and said she thought he wanted to make a statement by not posting bail, which he reportedly felt he could not afford to. She launched a campaign to solicit donations of RM1 from the public for the RM5,000 bail, but called it off a few hours later after the campaign raised over RM35,000.^[22]

Several Members of Parliament from the opposition Pakatan Rakyat coalition were present at Raja Petra's hearing, with one, Nurul Izzah Anwar, calling Malaysia Today 'the primary source of a lot of unearthing of scandals especially corrupt practices of the leadership and the government...it has helped [open] the eyes of the nation to what is going on and what is wrong with the country. It played a huge role in the last elections."^[22] On the same day, Lim Kit Siang raised the issue of Raja Petra's sedition charges in Parliament, arguing that Najib had personally intervened to ensure the Attorney-General would charge Raja Petra with sedition, and calling it an abuse of power.^[24]

Raja Petra Kamaruddin's wife Marina Lee Abdullah stated that "He is on a hunger strike. It is a protest. The last time he did this, his liver was damaged. I don't think he is going to last that long." Raja Petra also refused visits by family members.^[25] On his release, Raja Petra claimed that he had not, in fact, been on a hunger strike but was refusing to eat and drink for fear of being poisoned, as Chief Inspector Azilah Hadri and Cpl. Sirul Azhar Umar (on trial for the murder of Altantuya Shaariibuu) are being remanded in the same prison.^[26]

Statutory declaration[link]

In a statutory declaration on June 18, 2008, Raja Petra accused Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor (the wife of Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak) of being one of three individuals who were present at the crime scene when Altantuya Shaariibuu was murdered on October 19, 2006.^[27] The statutory declaration also mentioned that every information he obtained regarding the above allegations were contained in a Military Intelligence reports received by Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, implying knowledge on the part of the Prime Minister.^[28]

Raja Petra later distanced himself from the statutory declaration in an interview with TV3, saying his accusations linking Najib and Rosmah to the murder was repeating information passed onto him by opposition figures, rather than information he knew to be true himself. He stated that he did not genuinely believe that Rosmah was at the murder scene.^[29] The Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement alleged the interview was heavily edited and spin doctored in favour of Prime Minister Najib Razak just in time for the upcoming Sarawak state elections.^[30][31] Raja Petra has backed up this assertion during an interview with Malaysiakini.^[32]

Feud with Najib Tun Razak[link]

Criminal Defamation Trial[link]

On July 16, 2008 the Malaysian police have obtained a warrant of arrest against Raja Petra for criminal defamation. This is due to his statutory declaration connecting Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak’s wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, saying she was present when Mongolian national Altantunya Shaariibuu’s body was blown up.^[33] On July 17, Raja Petra was charged with three counts of criminal intimidation over his statutory declaration on the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu. He is alleged to have defamed Deputy Prime Minister's wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor by making a libellous statement in the declaration which he affirmed on June 18 when he knew that it would tarnish her good name. He also faced similar charges against Kolonel Norhayati Hassan and her husband Acting Kolonel Abdul Aziz Buyong.^[34]

The trial of Raja Petra, who has been charged with defaming Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor and her two assistants, will begin in the Sessions Court on May 26, 2009. Raja Petra had sought an order from the High Court to refer the matter to the Federal Court on a constitutional point or to return the case to the magistrate's court for trial.^[35]

References[link]

External links[link]

• Malaysia today main page
• Raja Petra Kamarudin's blog profile