An opposition Malaysian lawmaker has called on the government to enact a freedom of information law instead of imposing harsher penalties under the Official Secrets Act.
The comments came from Mohamed Hanipa Maidin, a member of the National Trust Party, according to an article in The Malaysian Insider. The chairman of the party’s legal bureau was reacting to the attorney general’s proposal to tighten the Official Secrets Act to prevent leakage of state secretes, as described in an article in Malaysiakini.
“In the absence of culture of transparency, accountability and good governance in doing any business, any state in the world is bound to face the nightmare of ‘Wikileaks epidemic’,” Hanipa said in a statement, the newspaper reported. People would have no reason to share state secrets in public if “transparency reigned supreme,” Hanipa said. “Instead of tightening the grip of OSA to prevent the ‘Wikileaks culture’ it is high time for the government to enact the much awaited Freedom of Information Act,” the Sepang member of parliament said.
FOI laws exist in the states of Selangor and Penang, but there is no national FOI law, as lamented in an article by Mustafa K. Anuar, a fellow at the Penang Institute in The Malaysian Mail. He says the attorney general “should be more concerned about financial leakages in the government system rather than information leaks.”
Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) also issued a statement about Attorney General Mohd Apandi’s announced intentions, according to an article in Free Malaysia Today. Additional criticism came from Edgardo Legaspu, the Southeast Asian Press Alliance (SEAPA) executive director.
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