by RAHIMI YUNUS/ pic by ARIF KARTONO

The Federal Court has found news portal Malaysiakini guilty of contempt of court by a ruling of six-to-one over the publication of readers’ comments.

This is the first time in the country’s history a news portal has been cited for contempt of court.

The apex court, however, found the news portal’s editor-in chief Steven Gan not liable of contempt.

“We found the charge (of contempt) has been made and found the plaintiff (Attorney General) had proven the case against Mkini Dotcom Ssn Bhd but not against the chief editor (second respondent),” Court of Appeal President Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf said at the court today.

The judge said the presumption that the news portal had knowledge of the offensive comments that were published had not been rebutted.

Meanwhile, she said the prosecution had failed to establish a case that Gan had facilitated in the publication of the comments.

Previously, the Attorney General Tan Sri Idrus Harun sought leave to start committal proceedings against Mkini Dotcom and Gan in relation to five readers’ comments on an article published by Malaysiakini on June 9, entitled “CJ orders all courts to be fully operational from July 1”, which was deemed offensive.

Following the court ruling, Malaysiakini launched a crowdfunding exercise to help it raise RM500,000 to pay for the fine.

The sum – which is more than the RM200,000 sought by the Attorney-General’s Chambers – must be paid within three working days, by next Wednesday (Feb 24).

Gan reportedly said that the portal was not punished for its journalism, but on readers’ comments.