SHAH ALAM, 6 Oct: The Home Affairs Minister, Datuk Zahid Hamidi, has been urged to respect the duty of journalists to ask questions of public interest.
PKR Vice-President, Tian Chua said, Zahid, as a Minister, should give accurate answers regarding the loss of police weapons reported in the Auditor-General’s Report 2012.
“The questions asked by journalists are not allegations, but the matter has already been reported in the Auditor-General’s Report 2012,” he said.
Tian Chua said, Zahid Hamidi should ensure the loss of police weapons does not repeat by making improvements to the team in the future.
“If he was brave, Zahid Hamidi should have ‘warned’ the Auditor-General and not Malaysiakini jornalists,” said Tian Chua when contacted by TVSelangor.
Co-founders of Malaysiakini, Premesh Chandran and Steven Gan stressed that journalists have a fundamental duty to ask questions of public interest, to which ministers have the responsibility to answer.
“If the Home Minister believes that Malaysiakini has misreported his statements, he can always contact us for a correction,” said chief executive officer Premesh and editor-in-chief Gan.
“If he feels we are unfair to him, we are always ready to meet him or any other minister to discuss our reportage.
“To date, we have not received any complaints from him or his office,” said Premesh and Gan in their media statement quoted from the Malaysiakini portal.
Previously, Zahid Hamidi warned Malaysiakini journalists regarding the question of the integrity of the police force and the loss of police weapons stated in the Auditor-General’s Report.
He then forbade further discussion on the matter and said “no more” questions from Malaysiakini.
Zahid warned Malaysiakini to report his exact words.