Penang pushes for freedom of information laws

Penang is waiting to see if Selangor is successful in enacting the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) as its own state legal adviser has hampered it, saying it is “unconstitutional”.

Penang Chief Minister and DAP Secretary-General Lim Guan Eng (picture) today repeated his call for freedom of information to mark World Press Freedom Day tomorrow.

“In Penang, the state legal adviser has objected to the Penang state government’s intention to enact a FOI on the grounds that it is unconstitutional,” he said in a statement.

He said the legal adviser’s opinion is that information is under the federal list of the federal Constitution and not within the jurisdiction of the state government.

“The state government is closely following the efforts by the Selangor state government to enact the FOI and should this be successful will then enact a similar law in the Penang State Assembly,” he said.

Lim lamented that DAP as well as other interested parties had long called for the abolishing of other Acts deemed repressive to freedom of the press, but their demands had fallen on deaf ears.

“Year after year DAP, National Union of Journalists and even Suhakam call the federal government to abolish the Printing Presses and Publications Act, the Internal Security Act, the Official Secrets Act and other repressive laws inherited from the British colonial days.

“We even asked for the enactment of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI) to ensure competency, accountability and transparency in governance,” said Lim, who is also the MP for Bagan.

He said the government’s actions in ignoring the demands for media freedom have resulted in media freedom deteriorating further with more of intimidation towards the media in the past four months alone.

He cited a recent case where on April 22 a media award-winning producer of ntv7 talk show “Editor’s Time”, Joshua Wong, was forced to resign in protest against unreasonable restrictions and “overzealous self-censorship and government interference” against the opposition by those close to the prime minister.

A few days later, a RTM2 producer, Chou Z Lam, also claimed political interference when his documentary on the Bakun dam project in Sarawak was cancelled under the direct instruction of RTM director-general Ibrahim Yahaya for “fear” of affecting BN’s chances in the upcoming Sibu by-election, claimed Lim.

The list went on as Lim brought up the Home Ministry’s actions in pressuring China Press to take disciplinary action against its editor-in-chief for publishing a report that the Inspector-General of Police had resigned. The daily had enforced the “advice” by suspending the editor-in-chief, as well as issued a Page One apology pertaining to the news report.

The Home Ministry had also issued a show-cause letter to The Star over the article “Persuasion, not compulsion” by its managing editor that was published on Feb 19 pertaining to issue of syariah law. The daily subsequently apologised to its readers.

“A week later, The Star refused to publish its columnist Marina Mahathir’s column touching on the caning of women under the Islamic law in February,” said Lim.

He also claimed that Barisan Nasional-owned newspapers like Utusan Malaysia had spread “lies against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, preaching racial hatred and even violence,” yet no action was taken against them.

“Freedom to lie is not freedom of the press. Similarly newspapers should observe one of the basic tenets of press freedom is to give a right of reply.

“This right of reply has been denied to repeatedly to PR leaders by the mainstream media controlled by BN,” Lim said - Agencies.