theSun shows the way with unprecedented coverage

We would like to commend theSun for its prominent and courageous coverage of Aliran Monthly's 25th anniversary in its weekend edition on Saturday.

Its main front-page story carried a large photo of two Aliran Monthly front covers with the headline, "The Good Fight". The coverage continued inside with Regina William's interview with Aliran president P Ramakrishnan. The coverage also featured background articles, comments from regular Aliran Monthly contributors and an interview with Aliran's founding president.

For far too long, Aliran has been virtually blacked out by most of the mainstream media, so theSun's prominent coverage of Aliran Monthly was a welcome and surprising development.

We are commending theSun not just because Aliran has received such prominent coverage - but for a critical human rights group to receive such prominent and extensive coverage (more than five pages in all) is something unheard of in Malaysia. We hope theSun will continue to highlight not only Aliran's work and statements, but also the broader struggle for justice and freedom that so many civil society groups in Malaysia are engaged in.

It would be great if theSun could also provide an avenue for the voices of the many "small people" to be heard - those whose struggles and grievances are rarely given much prominence in the mainstream media: refugees, Orang Asli, the indigenous groups in Sabah and Sarawak, foreign workers, asylum seekers, students, the families of ISA detainees, student activists. In this way, theSun will truly become a "people's paper" that is worthy of the name.

We hope the other newspapers will emulate theSun's weekend interviews, which - as we observed even before the coverage given to Aliran - have been head and shoulders above the rest of the paper's rivals. Its interviews so far have provided a tantalising glimpse into some of the many different voices in Malaysia that are crying out to be heard.