KUALA LUMPUR (March 14):  Opposition lawmaker Lim Kit Siang said today there can be no joy, but immense sadness at the shutdown of online news portal The Malaysian Insider (TMI) from midnight today.

The shutdown follows the government's decision to block the news portal last month.

"...to decent and thinking Malaysians, there can be no, joy but immense sadness at the death of TMI, whose travails in the past eight years reflect the agonies and trials of Malaysia to become a normal democratic country, where the fundamental liberties enshrined in the Merdeka Constitution in 1957 are living guarantees and not meaningless words," said the DAP stalwart and MP for Gelang Patah, in his latest blog post.

"Malaysians pay tribute to the TMI editor Jahabar Sadiq and all the TMI journalists for their contribution in bringing Malaysia towards the light of information and accountability, fighting the darkness of censorship and secrecy," he said.

"The battle for democracy, freedom, accountability and good governance must go on, and although TMI has fallen, the soon-to-be former TMI journalists and like-minded Malaysians must put their shoulder to the wheel to keep alive and alight, the aspirations of all Malaysians for truth, freedom and justice, until the achievement of the Malaysian Dream," he added.

The Edge Media Group has decided to cease operations of TMI with immediate effect, which had incurred losses of around RM10 million in the 20 months since the group had acquired it in June, 2014.