Rumours continue about a major defection of more than 30 parliamentarians affiliated with the ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front) bloc to the camp of the Pakatan Rakyat alliance of Anwar. This has put to the test Abdullah's leadership, coming on the heels of the Front's losing its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time in March.

The arrests are also being closely watched because thus far, Malaysia's government has not been able to control the Internet-based news media or discussion groups as much as it has the traditional media.

This has allowed the Internet to become an alternative space especially in the years after the 1998 'reformasi' movement, sparked by Anwar's arrest at the time after his fallout with ex-Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.

Six days after popular blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin was arrested on Sep 12 for allegedly being a threat to national security through articles highly critical of the government and what the police called "hatred-inciting articles" in his blog site Malaysia Today, another blogger was picked up Thursday on sedition charges.

Syed Azidi Syed Aziz was arrested Wednesday at his home in northern Malaysia after he displayed an image of the Malaysian flag upside down on his blog, www.kickdefella.wordpress.com. Reports say he had advocated that people fly the flag upside down to protest against the Malaysian political situation.

The blog site has not been blocked as of this writing. Charges of sedition have not been filed yet, and authorities say the case is still under investigation.

Apart from these two bloggers, high-ranking parliamentarian and Selangor state deputy chief minister Teresa Kok and Chinese-language newspaper 'Sin Chew Daily' journalist Tan Hoon Cheng were arrested on Sep. 12 under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Tan has been released 16 hours after his detention and Kok was released Friday.

"We've always felt that the Sedition Act is not the way to go as it's a broadly worded act. I think what Syed Azidi was trying to do was to send a message that things are topsy-turvy in the country and that this clearly a case of overreacting on the part of the authorities," Centre for Independent Journalism Malaysia director V Gayathry said in a phone interview.

"The situation is pretty explosive right now, as anything can happen. There hasn't been a threat as of yet against the online media but if there's a move to clamp down, Malaysiakini will be one of the first ones to be affected," observed Premesh Chandran, chief executive officer and co-founder of independent online news organisation Malaysiakini.com.

ISA, the law that Malaysian authorities used to make the arrests, allows for detention for a period without trial and has long been the subject of protests by activists. First enacted in 1948 as an anti-communism measure, the ISA, a leftover from British rule, allows a person to be held without charges for 60 days before the matter is submitted to the Home Ministry for review.

Malaysia's Sedition Act 1948, another legacy of the British colonial era, penalises anyone suspected of carrying out speeches and actions with 'seditious tendency' that could bring about hatred or hostility against the government or among different races. Those charged and convicted with sedition face up three years imprisonment or a hefty fine, or both.

For Chandran, the ISA is a "complete negation of all civil rights" and can be carried out against any individual "even without any obvious threat in any way".

Liew Chin Tong, a member of parliament for Bukit Bendera in Penang and the international secretary for the opposition Democratic Action Party, agreed that the ISA "is a political tool to crush political opposition". For him, the recent spate of arrests has been sloppily handled and were clearly "mistakes based on misconceptions".

"The government has this misconception that it was these bloggers that caused all these troubles. A blogger, or his blog, is only a medium and is not the message himself. The government has lost touch with the public," he said over the phone.

University lecturer Wong Chin Huat noted that people, especially bloggers, are actually more angry than fearful as a result of the arrests.

"Malaysians are no longer in a situation where they are easily cowed by the government. Also another reason is the prospect that this government's tenure may not last long. In the past, you worry about being detained as the government could easily renew your detention every two years. That's not the case today," said Wong, who is also co-initiator of the media reform signature campaign on www.benar.org.

Political bloggers, he added, know that they do not have to answer to anyone since they are not "financially tied" to their publications' owners, unlike many of mainstream journalists in the country.

Raja Petra, like Kok still detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA), has been an outspoken critic of the United Malay National Organisation (UMNO) party, which is led by Badawi and is dominant in the Barisan Nasional. His website, Malaysia Today (www.malaysiatoday.com), has also been blocked.

The uproar over the arrests reverberated not only among the bloggers themselves but among political parties and even mainstream media usually associated with the government, says Maria Abdullah, senior programme manager at the women's organisation Sisters in Islam.

Of the blog and alternative websites, Maria Abdullah said: "They provide alternative channels of information, which the mainstream media have completely missed out on. The mainstream media have become the 'mouthpiece' of the ruling administration that they have lost sight of their very existence providing non-partisan information, based on investigative journalism," she said.

The popularity of online media can be seen as "a silent protest" against mainstream media, she added.

"People are thirsty for information and there is not one single news organisation that is fulfilling this thirst. Traditional media are trying to provide for this need but somehow they are not able to fulfill that role by giving the full story or having a critical analysis of issues," Gayathry explained. "This is where online media has come in by feeding people information and some insider information as well."

Among the online media she considers reliable include Malaysiakini.com, Malaysia Insider, and Star Online.

Even the mainstream media, usually cautious or on the government's side, are now being seen by the ruling party as "becoming too free" for comfort, according to Gayathry.

Although the bloggers' arrest has, in the words of Malaysian blogger Jeremiah Foo, "caused an eruption of anger in the Malaysian blogosphere", mainstream journalist groups still are not 'united' and open in thoroughly discussing the issue.

But Gayathry says that individual journalists are slowly coming out and speaking up.

"The media profile has changed a lot. For one, many small players are coming up that are independent from the government. Although broadband penetration is still not as high, more than 50 percent of people have access to the Internet," said Chin Tong, who is also a columnist for an online newspaper.

At present, said Wong, there is no way bloggers can protect themselves from the ISA. "Apart from long overdue media reform, we also need a stronger public support and more international pressure," he said.

Already, Malaysia ranks a low 124th in the Reporters Without Borders' Worldwide Press Freedom Index in 2007.

"The Internet is occupying more and more space in the breakdown of press freedom violations," said the international media watch body in its 2007 report.

More and more governments have realised that the Internet can play a key role in the fight for democracy and they are establishing new methods of censoring it. The governments of repressive countries are now targeting bloggers and online journalists as forcefully as journalists in the traditional media.