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KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 23 – PKR wants the Home Ministry to clearly spell out what would make it “satisfied enough” to grant the party back its printing permit for Suara Keadilan.

An indignant-sounding Chua Tian Chang expressed dissatisfaction today that the ministry was still snubbing PKR despite having renewed the permits of DAP’s Rocket and PAS’ Harakah.

The party’s chief strategist claimed that Home Minister Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein had repeatedly refused to meet with him to discuss the issue.

“Hishammuddin does not want to see us. I do not know how, but I will work out a way to meet him.

“I am keen to see him and we want to meet with him face to face,” he told The Malaysian Insider today.

Chua said that he wanted to ask the minister to explain exactly what the party needed to do in order to satisfy the ministry.

He was referring to the last statement by the ministry’s Publications Control and Quranic Text secretary Datuk Zaitun Ab Samad that Suara Keadilan’s permit would not be renewed as it had failed to provide a satisfactory explanation on its queries.

Zaitun had also insisted that the party had been informed of this and would not be able to continue publishing as its permit had already expired in June.

The ministry had earlier slapped a show-cause letter on Suara Keadilan, seeking for an explanation on several offensive articles it had published, including the controversial “Felda Bangkrap” article.

“They must tell us what to do... what do they mean when they said they were not satisfied enough?”

“We want them to spell out clearly exactly what it is that we have to do in order to make them satisfied enough to give us back our permit,” he said.

Chua chided the ministry for simply saying it was not happy with the party but failing at the same time to provide it with clearer guidelines.

“You cannot just say you are not happy... this is not something you can simply just show off your authority and then get away with it.

“Make it clear – what are your conditions? What would satisfy you?” he said.

Chua also indicated that the party may be willing to comply with the ministry’s guidelines, albeit grudgingly.

If they say they want us to sign some sort of undertaking so we can get our printing permit back, we might consider. Let us see what kind of issues they want us to play down and we might think about it.

“But again, we will tell them that honestly, their guidelines are nonsensical,” he insisted.

Chua however noted that the party would not allow itself to be “cowed into submission” and pointed out that it would not simply accept the ministry’s guidelines without putting up some resistance.

“What is it… you do not want us to mention the word Felda? Ok then, we can spell out Felda backwards instead.

“And when they give us the guidelines, you can be sure we will show them to the media so that you guys can have a great time laughing about it and putting it on your headlines.

“Imagine... you could say – The Home Ministry bans the F word,” he said.

Chua admitted that the party had been having trouble pushing out its papers to the public, since the debacle over its printing permit began in early July.

“We do not need to lie about it... there has been some setback. We have lost some of our market,” he said.

PKR was the first Pakatan Rakyat party to cross swords with the government after it allegedly published defamatory articles.

PAS’ Harakah and DAP’s The Rocket permits were targeted next when the ministry slapped show-cause letters on both parties for violating their publishing permits.

Since then however, both parties received their renewals, leaving PKR the only one left in the ministry’s bad books.

Despite this, PKR has continued to publish its papers under different mastheads each time, with the latest this week called “Metro Keadilan”.

It has also printed “Keadilan”, “Obor Keadilan”, “Sinar Keadilan” and “Utusan Keadilan”.

It is utilising a loophole in printing laws that allows it to print one-off non-serialised publications without obtaining a permit, similar to the editions it published from 1999 to 2008 when it finally received a permit.