Irrational 'overkill' suppresses free speech, says watchdog

The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International - Malaysia (TI-M) said those implicated in the 1MDB scandal should explain themselves, instead having the government to suspend The Edge Financial Daily and The Edge Weekly, and block access to Sarawak Report.

“Our government must not go for the ‘overkill’ in suppressing free speech on the pretext of acting against critics. Let’s get our facts right before we carry out more irrational measures.

“Let us for a moment step back and ask ourselves why we are in this unwanted predicament today. So many people who are not directly related to 1MDB have been raided, remanded, interrogated and even faced with travel bans.

“If only the few characters that are directly related to 1MDB fulfil their moral and legal obligations to tell us Malaysians the full story and not bits and pieces which have in some cases been proven incorrect, we could have spent our useful resources to reach the goals of 2020,” TI-M president Akhbar Satar (photo) said in a statement today.

Bloomberg reported that the state investment company, which was trumpeted as a cornerstone of Najib’s economic policy after he became prime minister in April 2009, is now mired in debts of at least US$11 billion.

Former premier Mahathir Mohamad, a one-time political mentor who has turned on Najib, accused that “vast amounts of money” have “disappeared” from 1MDB funds.