{"id":917,"date":"2010-05-03T00:15:16","date_gmt":"2010-05-02T16:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/limguaneng.com\/?p=917"},"modified":"2010-05-03T00:15:16","modified_gmt":"2010-05-02T16:15:16","slug":"selangor%e2%80%99s-success-in-enacting-the-freedom-of-informationfoi-act-will-be-adopted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/2010\/05\/03\/selangor%e2%80%99s-success-in-enacting-the-freedom-of-informationfoi-act-will-be-adopted\/","title":{"rendered":"Selangor\u2019s Success In Enacting The Freedom Of Information(FOI) Act Will Be Adopted"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Press Freedom Day Message By Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng In World Heritage City of George Town, Penang On 2 May 2010.
\n
\nSelangor\u2019s Success In Enacting The Freedom Of Information(FOI) Act Will Be Adopted As Penang\u2019s Intent On Enacting The FOI Blocked On Constitutional Grounds By The Penang State Legal Advisor.
\n<\/strong>
\nYear after year DAP, National Union of Journalists and even Suhakam calls tthe 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. <\/p>\n

Media freedom deteriorating<\/strong>
\n
\nHowever this was ignored and more media curbs imposed. No wonder our press freedom rankings dropped. And the first four months of this year alone did not see improvement with harassment of the press continuing. <\/p>\n

On April 22nd 2010, a media award winning producer of ntv7 talk show \u201cEditor\u2019s Time\u201d Joshua Wong was forced to resign in protest against unreasonable restrictions and \u201coverzealous self-censorship and government interference\u201d against the opposition by those close to the Prime Minister. \u201cThis restriction of freedom amounts to a punishment and it affects the professionalism of the team,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

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 affection BN\u2019s chances in this coming Sibu by-election. <\/p>\n

Other cases of curbs of press freedom this year includes:-<\/p>\n

\u00b7 In March 2010, the Home Ministry \u201cadvised\u201d the China Press to decide on disciplinary action against its editor-in-chief for publishing a report that the Inspector General of Police had resigned. The daily promptly enforced the \u201cadvice\u201d by suspending the editor-in-chief, as well as issued a page one apology pertaining to the news report. <\/p>\n

\u00b7 On 26 February 2010, the Home Ministry issued a show-cause letter to The Star over the article \u201cPersuasion, not compulsion\u201d by its managing editor, that was published on Feb 19 pertaining to issues of shariah law. The daily also apologised to its readers. <\/p>\n

\u00b7 A week later, The Star refused to publish its columnist Marina Mahathir\u2019s column touching on the caning of women under the Islamic law in February. <\/p>\n

\u00b7 Intimidate book sellers by confiscating books deemed unfavourable to the Barisan government. Among the books seized in January and February this year were copies of \u201cWhere is Justice\u201d and \u201c1Funny Malaysia\u201d.<\/p>\n

At the same time no action is taken against Utusan Malaysia for its lies against Pakatan Rakyat leaders, preaching racial hatred and even violence. 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. <\/p>\n

In Penang, the State Legal Advisor had objected to the Penang state government\u2019s intention to enact a FOI on the grounds that it is unconstitutional. According to her, 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.<\/p>\n

The press must be free. Let all Malaysians press for freedom!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

World Press Freedom Day Message By Penang Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng In World Heritage City of George Town, Penang On 2 May 2010. Selangor\u2019s Success In Enacting The Freedom Of Information(FOI) Act Will Be Adopted As Penang\u2019s Intent On Enacting The FOI Blocked On Constitutional Grounds By The Penang State Legal Advisor. Year after …<\/p>\n

Selangor\u2019s Success In Enacting The Freedom Of Information(FOI) Act Will Be Adopted<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":918,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions\/918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/limguaneng.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}