Citizen Nades – Police must get their priorities right

By asking for investigations into the leaked documents, it has authenticated what Sarawak Report has said over the week. If they contained false information, it would not come under the purview of the OSA.

Citizen Nades, The Sun Daily

IN the “bad” old days, getting hold of the Straits Times published in Singapore was an achievement. As one crossed the Causeway, the often-asked question was: “Ada surat khabar dalam beg?” They had no qualms about The Telegraph or The Times of London but any publication from Singapore was taboo.

In those days, we used to have pages from The Economist, the Far Eastern Economic Review andAsiaweek blackened to prevent us from reading “anti-government propaganda”. It didn’t prevent us getting access to such reports. An innocuous envelope would be sent to us containing the “offending” stories that had been obliterated.

And when fax machines became a fixture in our offices, they became the fastest and easiest way to disseminate what the government did not want us to read. Today, with the advent of information technology, gadgets and applications, the diffusion of information has become impossible to contain.

The government has blocked the Sarawak Report and other websites, but this has not prevented Malaysians access to these sites or the contents which have gone viral on the Net. Over the past week, it has published three damning reports on the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB).

These reports, we have been told, have been gleaned from the Auditor-General’s (AG) Report, which has been classified under the Official Secrets Act. (It is an offence punishable with mandatory jail sentence to reveal classified information and that prevents us from reproducing the juicy details, assuming they are true.)

Justifying the classification, Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Seri Azalina Othman said that information submitted by Bank Negara Malaysia on 1MDB to the PAC is “confidential and cannot be made public”. This no longer holds water. The information is now in public domain. The public assume that they are reading the truth and here’s why.

If they are lies or false information, we will have no reluctance in reproducing them in detail on this page. However, instead of the usual practice of asking Malaysians not to believe in lies perpetrated by the Western media, the government has done the contrary.

By asking for investigations into the leaked documents, it has authenticated what Sarawak Report has said over the week. If they contained false information, it would not come under the purview of the OSA.

As usual, we are quick on the draw on wanting to shoot the messenger but not wanting to understand and act on the contents of the message.

Communications and Multimedia Minister Datuk Seri Dr Salleh Said Keruak has asked the police to investigate and establish how Sarawak Report obtained the classified AG’s report on 1MDB. He said the investigation has to be done urgently and expeditiously to prevent further leaks of official secret documents which may put the country’s security in jeopardy.

Not to be outdone, Deputy Home Minister Nur Jazlan Mohamad has jumped on the bandwagon in asking for an investigation. So, the police force is going to spend a few thousand man-hours looking for a whistle-blower instead of investigating the people who have brought 1MDB to its knees.

This is why the public cringe and cover their faces in shame when the police force resorts to such prioritisation of their work. For example, not too long ago, they pursued a case where a woman was charged with causing annoyance. How did she do it? The police argued that she had released yellow balloons in a shopping complex which caused the annoyance. After a lengthy and costly trial involving scores of man-hours of police time, the charge under the Minor Offences Act (the maximum penalty is a fine of RM100) did not stick.

So, instead of spending time on such trivial matters, shouldn’t they be looking at the personalities named in the report of the Public Accounts Committee which was tabled in Parliament in April?

The Home Ministry has warned the media that legal action can be taken against any individual, group or organisation that makes defamatory remarks related to 1MDB. In a written reply in Parliament in April, it said laws such as the Sedition Act 1948, the Printing Presses and Publications Act 1948 and the Penal Code could be used against them.

So, let me declare that I am not disparaging 1MDB, the PAC or the AG. I am merely reminding the police of the promise made by the prime minister.

In a statement issued on April 7, the PM said that action will be taken on any evidence of wrongdoing found in the PAC report. The PAC report has pointed out the wrongdoings and the wrongdoers. So, what are the police waiting for?