On Monday, Rafizi was sentenced to 18 months’ jail by the Kuala Lumpur Sessions Court for his breach of the Official Secrets Act 1972, when he revealed excerpts of the Auditor-General’s Report on the misuse of funds from the Armed Forces Fund Board (LTAT) in the 1MDB scandal.
Amnesty International said Rafizi was only acting in public interest as an elected representative, when he made the revelation in public.
“By invoking the Official Secrets Act, the Malaysian authorities are yet again taking the cover of national security to stop people from raising legitimate questions about the 1MDB funds and obstructing society from receiving such information,” the Tokyo-based current affairs magazine quoted Amnesty International’s deputy director for South East Asia and the Pacific, Josef Benedict as saying.
Meanwhile, Phil Robertson, who is deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said the fact that Prime Minister Najib Razak was alleged to be involved in corruption, makes the people’s right to know more imperative, without fear of politically-motivated prosecution to anyone discussing it.
“The conviction of opposition MP Rafizi Ramli under the Official Secrets Act is an unprecedented, rights-abusing use of this act, which can have only one purpose: to intimidate whistle-blowers into silence over the 1MDB corruption scandal,” Robertson was quoted as saying.
The Diplomat report added that the conviction had severely damaged Malaysia’s reputation in business and politics.
After publicising part of the findings of the A-G’s report on 1MDB on March 24 this year, Rafizi was arrested in early April, and charged with breaching the OSA.
He is currently free on bail pending the submission of an appeal to the High Court.
“If the appeals process is exhausted without the verdict being overturned, he will lose his seat in parliament and be sent to prison solely for the peaceful exercise of his rights.
“If Rafizi Ramli is imprisoned, Amnesty International would consider him a prisoner of conscience,” Benedict told The Diplomat.