PETALING JAYA (Sept 19): The DAP has described the government’s plan to take legal action against Suara Inisiatif Sdn Bhd, a company linked to human rights group Suaram, as an “act of political revenge to distract attention from the alleged Scorpene and NFC scandals.”
“Why is a privately-funded human rights NGO being selectively victimised over supposed financial irregularities, when there are a multitude of high-profile and scandalous cases of alleged corruption and mismanagement of public funds?” party secretary-general Lim Guan Eng asked in a statement on Wednesday.
He was commenting on Domestic Trade, Co-operatives and Consumerism Minister Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob’s statement on Tuesday that the Companies Commission of Malaysia had proposed to the Attorney-General that legal action be taken against Suara Inisiatif for allegedly reporting misleading accounts.
Noting that Suara Inisiatif’s accounts hade been audited and submitted routinely every year since 1989, Lim asked,“Why take action only now but not for the previous 23 years?”
The DAP leader claimed that the action against Suaram was a case of punishing the whistle-blower.
“Just as how PKR Election Strategy Director Rafizi Ramli was arrested for revealing bank account details that led to the charges against NFC Chairman Dauk Seri Mohamed Salleh Ismail, Suaram appears to have been victimised for its role in publicly highlighting and assisting in the Scorpene corruption trial in France.”