The ‘anarchist’, Hishamuddin Rais is a veritable magnet that attracts the attention of the alternative (political) media. Aside from his column in Malaysiakini, which constantly beats the rhythm of discontent, he has a blog, which he named ‘Tukar Tiub’ and his very own Radio Bangsar Utama.
His vacuum cleaner of a blog, which readily sucks in the youthful detritus of undecided and mostly blind political minds, has thus far produced two understudies in the likes of Rahmat Haron and Amin Iskandar – both portal columnists with links to foreign sponsors.
Better known as ‘Black’, Amin Iskandar has graduated to the post of Assistant News Editor of another renegade pseudo news portal, The Malaysian Insider.
Radio Bangsar Utama, an offshoot of Radiq Radio
The alternative renegade radio project was mooted by Sonia Randhawa, whom detractors have readily labelled as a ‘foreign agent’ at the Malaysian campus of Monash University and the community-funded independent New Era College.
[Note: Read New Era College, thus read also Dong Zong, Dr Kua Kia Soong and SUARAM]Sonia Randhawa was introduced in a working paper submitted by the Institute for Democracy and Reform (INDEFOR) to Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR).
The incriminating letter was duly discovered on the premises, and through which she was appointed the director of the Centre for Independent Journalism (CIJ), responsible for the training of causes founded on freedom of information to specific groups in Malaysia.
Part of Sonia’s profile in the paper described her as an editor at Radiq Radio, which was an independent radio station operating from 2001 till 2004.
Besides Sonia, the paper introduced three other characters, namely Cynthia Gabriel (Executive Director of SUARAM), Ibrahim Suffian (Merdeka Centre) and Azizuddin Ahmad (ABIM).
A handwritten note on the front page of the paper referred to the US-based foundation, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Read on in AIDC here
