The government is making a real mess in Nathaniel’s Tan arrest. I don’t know Nat personally, and I am not sure if he did (or did not) violate any laws, so I am not going to jump on the bandwagon and call for his release just yet.
What concerned me though, is on how he was arrested (I am not going into the arrest details, you can read it from Tian Chua instead) and the reason for his arrest…
Mohd Johari Baharom’s involvement
Nat was arrested on Friday afternoon (July 13) under Official Secret Act (OSA) and is remanded for 4 days under Section 8 of the Official Secret Act (OSA) over allegation of possession of documents pertaining to Johari Baharum’s alleged involvement in corruption. [Jeff Ooi]
It’s quite apparent that Nat’s arrest is a result of the order from Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharom, who has just been cleared of his corruption investigation a few days ago.
Johari actually has a decent point to fight against slandering, but the timing of the order make it extremely fishy, as if it’s a personal rage rather than act of wisdom. Besides, there are much more serious cases (rising crimes etc.) to be focused by the Internal Security Ministry and the police force.
Why is Nat arrested?
OSA is a joke, it is as rubbish as the Internal Security Act (ISA). The originally idea of OSA is to prevent leakage of confidential government documents (official secrets) that could harm the country. However the huge problem with OSA is that there are no clear definitions on ‘official secrets’…
Basically if an authorized person (cabinet, minister and some others) decided to name something official secrets, they are official secrets. It could be some really important documents or a love letter from the mistress… it will be protected under the act regardless; even the judiciary have no rights to question the decisions.
Samy Vellu has previously revoked the act when asked to present the documents regarding highway deals to the public. You can see how convenient the act is to protect the government VIPs from any corruption allegations, and how foolish the act is.
[Learn more about OSA from lawyer-blogger Malik Imtiaz Sarwar]
Back to Nat… there are no clear indications on what ‘official secrets’ he possessed, but since that the case is investigated by the Cyber Crime Unit, we can assumed that it has to be something related to his blog.
According to Susan, Nat was arrested because of a blog comment that linked to Johari’s alleged corruption. If this is true, it’s a real joke indeed.
Should we report on suspected corruption?
This raises another concern… should we report on suspected corruption if we somehow have some leads to some issues. It could come from an email, a blog comment, or some documents that were slipped through the door or mailbox, who knows… it might happen. So what are we going to do with those data? Should we report to Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) or what?
If we do report to the ACA and the alleged politician was found not guilty, we could end up like Nat thanks to the wonderful Official Secret Act… and if the proofs are solid enough, we could end up being blown off by C4 explosive before the case is actually opened. Wonderful.
All the best to Nat
I don’t know him, but I hope he is innocent of any charges, and my best wishes to his family and friends.
Update July 18 – Nat is released, but lots of questions remain unanswered.