Raja-Raja Melayu open to criticism says Pakatan Harapan

(FMT) – Deputy Youth and Sports Minister Steven Sim agrees with a suggestion that the monarchy should be more transparent.

Sim said although it was a sensitive subject, he said the rulers must realise that this was the direction taken by the country.

He was responding to a member of the audience who called for more access to information regarding the rulers at a talk in Kuala Lumpur titled “Benefits and Challenges to Access of Information in Malaysia” today.

“They (the monarchy) have to follow suit in terms of transparency (and) in terms of freedom of information and human rights,” Malaysiakini quoted him as saying at the talk.

The talk was organised by Unesco, RTM and the Asia-Pacific Institute for Broadcasting Development.

Also present at the talk was Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism (C4) executive director Cynthia Gabriel, who said issues concerning Malay rulers remained a taboo topic and called for investigative journalism into such topics to be protected.

The police had said it was investigating prominent social critic A Kadir Jasin for sedition and defamation after reports were lodged over his blog post about the Yang di-Pertuan Agong’s expenses.

Malaysiakini quoted Cynthia as saying that it was very disappointing that Kadir was lambasted for drawing the public’s attention towards something that might have needed further investigation and asked how investigative journalism could be enhanced in this situation.

At present, only the Selangor and Penang state governments have the Freedom of Information (FOI) law in place.

As part of PH’s election manifesto, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Hanipa Maidin had revealed last month that the Cabinet was in the midst of formulating an FOI at the national level.