The Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zahid Hamidi should immediately abandon all ideas of extraditing Claire Rewcastle-Brown, as public statements relating to the same will, most likely, make Malaysia the laughing stock of the international community.
Rewcastle-Brown is the editor Sarawak Report, an online portal that since has been blocked by the Malaysian Government. As if blocking the portal was not draconian enough, the Home Ministry wants to now extradite the editor, for exposing the shenanigans behind 1MDB.
Probably having realized that quite a number of Malaysians have discovered ways to navigate around the internet block, this extradition attempt will be seen as a very childish way to shut up one’s critics, rather than responsibly answer the allegations.
To date, the government has yet to show evidence of the “forged” emails or documents. To date, our PM has yet to explain why $700mil was deposited into his private bank account. This should be the focus of the Home Ministry and the Police, who have been given the mandate to uphold the law.
The way to refute allegations is to rebut them with facts and documents. That is what democratic governments do. PM Najib was supposed to have attended a #nothing2hide forum, but backed out at the last minute, and didn’t even make an effort to do a replacement event, suggesting many things to hide.
The people that are embarrassing Malaysia are not the whistleblowers and journalists, which have carried out their duty not to hide the truth. Not even the members of the opposition who have continuously asked for answers which have not been provided to date.
The people that are embarrassing Malaysia are the Home Minister, the Police, and Bank Negara, for sitting on the truth and for going after the whistle blowers. And now to a new low, for considering asking Britain to extradite Claire Rewcastle-Brown.