By Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General, MP for Tanjung and Assemblyman for Kampong Kolam, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jayaon Sunda, Nov 2, 1986:
DAP deplores police action against lawyer Shafee Abdullah which demonstrates the extremes the authorities will go to impose the cult of government secrecy when the OSA (Amendment) Bill 1986 becomes law
The DAP deplores the police action against lawyer Shafee Abdullah, counsel for the two expelled foreign journalists of Asian Wall Street Journal, placing him under arrest at his office on Thursday for resisting a police search under the Official Secrets Act.
The police spent some time looking through the appeal papers Encik Mohamed Shafee Abdulah, former DPP, had prepared for the two AWSJ correspondents whose appeal against their expulsion from Malaysia and the revocation of their work permits will be heard tomorrow at the Supreme Court.
The authorities appear to have decided to ount a special operation with the presentation of the 1986 official Secrets Act (Amendment) Bill to highlight the need for such an amendment, as in police action against another Kuala Lumpur lawyer, Phang Ah Hee, who was charged with possessing copies of a secret official document from the Attorney-General’s Chambers and copies of police investigation papers.
The police action against the two lawyers are very ominous, and shows the extremes the authorities will go to impose the cult of government secrecy when the OSA (Amendment) Bill 1986 imposing mandatory minimum one-year jail sentence becomes law.
Malaysia seems to have taken a few major steps closer to a police state, with the authorities checking whether documents are ‘official secrets’ instead of concentrating their time and energy to arrest the crooks and criminals which are exposed by these ‘official secrets’.
I would call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamed, to call a halt to the campaign of harassment which the police and the Attotney-General’s Chambers had embarked on, which will only alienate the government from the people further and aggravate the crisis of confidence in the country.
MCA cannot afford to let Tan Koon Swan resign as MP for fear of losing the Gopeng by-election
MCA President, Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik, returned from his meeting with Tan Koon Swan in Changi Prison in Singapore with the announcement that Tan Koon Swan has no plans to resign as Gopeng Member of Parliament.
It is clear that Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik and the MCA cannot afford to let Tan Koon Swan to do the honourable thing to resign as MP, for fear of losing the Gopeng by-election.
Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik and his MCA leadership are again putting party and their political interest above national interest for these is no doubt whatsoever that national interest demand that Tan Koon Swan resign as MP so that the people and country of Malaysia will not be the butt of international ridicule and contempt, and even more important , so that the Malaysian Chinese community will not be the joke of other communities in the country.
MCA leaders somehow find it very difficult to see a very simple moral which raises the important question whether Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik and his MCA leaders are morally and politically fit, not only to be Ministers but political leaders of the Malaysian Chinese.
Let me tell Datuk Dr. Ling Liong Sik plainly, that so long as Tan Koon Swan continue as MP of Gopeng, the MCA leaders have no right to talk about political morality or integrity.