It is an undoubted fact that the popular web portal, The Malaysian Insider and The Edge business weekly have been the shining light of the tightly controlled Malaysian media scene. The media units owned by The Edge Media Group have been relentless in their pursuit of journalistic principles in reporting and investigating grand corruption and financial scandals.
In particular, they have reported extensively on the 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB) scandal which has captured the imagination of the financial communities globally. They have played a critical role in piecing together all the relevant facts on how 1MDB has accumulated RM42 billion of debt in 5 years and highlighting the shenanigans resulting in the wholly-owned Ministry of Finance subsidiary being unable to even service its debts.
These articles exposed the alleged mismanagement and financial wrongdoings in the firm and implicated business tycoon Jho Low, who is close to Prime Minister Dato’ Seri Najib Abdul Razak’s family. The revelations of email communications between 1MDB, Jho Low and PetroSaudi by Sarawak Report, had caused extensive damage to Najib’s reputation and threatened his position.
The Royal Malaysian Police had arrested 3 editors of The Malaysian Insider on 30 March – managing editor Lionel Morais, Bahasa news editor Amin Iskandar and features and analysis editor, Zulkifli Sulong, for alleged sedition over a report published on March 25 which said that the Conference of Rulers had rejected a proposal to amend a federal law that would pave the way for hudud to be enforced in Kelantan. However, the question foremost in the minds of ordinary Malaysians is why the portal was specifically targeted.
The overnight arrest was soon followed by the arrest and detention of The Edge publisher Ho Kay Tat and The Malaysian Insider chief executive Jahabar Sadiq who had cooperated fully with the police over the investigations.
It is completely unprecendented that 5 persons from the same news group are arrested and detained for sedition investigations over a single news story. The arrests and detentions were obviously unnecessary and excessive, especially given the fact that all of the above individuals were willingly cooperative with the police and posed no threat of absconding.
Worse, the necessary statements from them would not have taken more than a couple of hours to complete and would not require the Police to request for multiple day remands from the magistrate.
Hence it would appear that the extremely heavy-handed approach and actions by the Royal Malaysian Police is designed to intimidate and frighten the journalists and news agencies against such diligent reporting against grand corruption and financial scandals in the country. In particular, it also appears to be an act of revenge against The Edge media group for the relentless pursuit to get to the bottom of the monster RM42 billion 1MDB financial scandal.
The Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Khalid Abu Bakar must stop abusing the powers of the Royal Malaysian Police to persecute against those in the Fourth Estate and the civil society. These people and entities are merely exercising their rights and despatching their responsibilities by acting as an effective check and balance to the Government of the day in line with a democratic and progressive political environment.