MalaysiaToday.com Raja Petra Kamarudin

Written by Helmi

Friday, 30 July 2004 00:00

Raja Petra bin Raja Kamarudin is a controversial Malaysian editor. Born in 1950, on September 27, the editor of the famous Malaysia-Today website is a very much personal blog that publishes a trail of commentary references. Widely known in his initials as RPK or to some quarters Peter, Raja Petra’s articles predominantly encircle around the areas of the Malaysian politics. Raja Petra received his early education at the Alice Smith School and was born in England. He then went on to the Kuala Kangsar Malay college before finishing high school at Victoria Institution (VI). Raja Petra, as his name states, is a member of the royal family of the Selangor state. His uncle is the eleventh Yang di-Pertuan Agong of Malaysia, and the seventh Selangor state’s Sultan, Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah. He is of mixed parentage as his mother Barbara Mable Parnell is Welsh and carries the name Che’Bariya Kamarudin. Raja Petra got married when he was 23 to the then 18 year old Marina Lee Abdullah who is a book publisher and together they have 5 children who are Raja Suraya, Raja Azman, Raja Shahril, Raja Azmir and Raja Sara. Raja Petra Kamarudin involvement in politics are nothing new in the scene. He was one of the leading members of the then Parti Keadilan Nasional which was set up in 1998. He and some 10 other activist were then held under the ISA (Internal Security Act) for allegedly trying to overthrow Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the Prime Minister then. Raja Petra then went on to cyberspace where he created the Malaysia Today.net portal where he writes about the happenings in the political scene, often providing some insights that are not reported in the mass media. This has brought him much trouble over the years as he advocates more transparency, accountability and equal rights in his blogs. While most of his entries in his blog are on the current happenings in the political arena, which he so often draws attention to his controversial statements and insights to what is happening, a few events stand out. One of them is his entry in his blog that prompted Tan Sri Muhammad Muhammad Taib, the Information Chief of Umno to lodge a police report against him for insulting, the Yang di-Pertuan Agong, degrade Islam and was deemed seditious to create hatred among local ethnic groups. Raja Petra who would not be silenced slammed Taib for hypocrisy and corruption which prompted another report against him. He was then called in for questioning by police for 8 hours and stated that Taib made the report because the government wanted to silence the bloggers before the general elections to be held in March. Perhaps one of the most significant events that Raja Petra was involved in would be his claims on the involvement of Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in the murder trial of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu. For the claims, he has been charged under the Seditious Act which saw him held under the ISA again. In detention, he denied the bail of RM5,000 as it was reported by his wife that he could not afford to do so. She then tried to raise funds by asking for donations of RM1 from the public, in a few hours, the campaign raised over RM30,000 which prompted her to call off the event. Raja Petra later made a statutory declaration on his website, this time attacking the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor as being involved in the murder trial. According to Raja Petra, there were 3 individuals present at the murder scene when the Mongolian was killed, and one of them is the DPM’s wife. He also claimed that the event was then compiled into a Military Intelligence report and has been submitted to the Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and his son in law, Khairy Jamaluddin. Zen - Malaysia Today