Tricia Yeoh

Enter Law Enforcer with super vision, sharp eyes scanning all ground for possible Male-Female couples (or male-male, female-female, god forbid!) in close proximity. Bionic vision zooms in to focus upon subjects A and B. The No-Kiss-Polis scouts out for interlocking lips, fingers and hands clasped around the other's back (this constitutes the horrifying act of hugging) and other general behaviour which epitomise moral indecency.

Yes, indeed, our capital Kuala Lumpur of Malaysia (the very modern country in South East Asia, heard of it?) has progressed to this very state!

How victorious its citizens should be that the city council is now looking out for their interests. It is preposterous, the sort of behaviour carried out by Ooi Kean Thong and Siow Ai Wei recently, isn't it? After all, kissing in public is definitely out of line with Asian values. Hugging is also a no-no. I feel I owe my life to the Datuk Bandar of KL! He will save me from all uncomfortable future couples who display indecent moral behaviour. As reported in the NST,

“The court unanimously held that the Datuk Bandar of Kuala Lumpur (DBKL) was correct to charge two students with behaving indecently by hugging and kissing at the Kuala Lumpur City Centre Park. The court ruled the section invoked by the Datuk Bandar to punish persons caught behaving indecently in public was constitutional.”

The Malaysian Bar has issued a statement on morality and how when a law is imposed, this creates a problem because of its generalization possibility, and questions how boundaries will be drawn. Says Yeo Yang Poh, its chairman,

Laws on decency should only be invoked if the impugned conducts has threatened public order or the public’s sense of decency; not because it has offended the sense of decency of an individual or some individuals in authority.

Now don't all of us Malaysians feel so great about marketing our country to the world at large? Don't you think that the tourism industry is so going to expand rapidly? That now finally we can live up to the slogan of "Malaysia, Truly Asia"? Aren't you simply cluckingly proud of the fact that our streets will be free of any sort of public affection, including holding of hands, whilst strolling along the (KLCC) park? That instead, this will be replaced by the patrolling officers in No-Kiss mode, striking with stern rods whoever braves the directive? Yes, indeed let us continue a policy of looking towards our role models over in the mid-east.

Note: The writer does not support indecent display of affection of course. But laws against moral indecency including hugging and kissing in public… can slowly escalate to the punishment of any sort of physical touch if legislation is not kept clear.

I was graciously invited by Cynthia Gabriel to join her in a panel discussion last night. Hosted and interviewed by Gayathry from CIJ (Centre of Independent Journalism), we spent about half an hour in verbal banter on a hot topic of the day! Freedom of Information in Malaysia, or the lack thereof.

It was an interesting session, me not having had any experience whatsoever in being a panelist for the public. Cynthia was the former Executive Director of SUARAM, Malaysia's Human Rights group (Suara Rakyat Malaysia: Malaysian Citizens' Voice). She currently leads the Freedom of Information Coalition, a network of NGOs and groups that are advocating for maximum information disclosure at all levels.

She cited examples of how the lack of information leads to bad governance. And why quote the Official Secrets Act for issues that citizens have a right to access information for? Pertinent examples would be water and health. She mentioned that Malaysians continue to live in an environment of secrecy and fear, where something as simple as Air Quality was for so long hidden from us.

Coming from a Research Centre myself, I spoke about practical problems faced when trying to access data and statistics. The first problem is the inconsistency of data definition in tables released by official departments. This makes it difficult to make cross-comparisons between categories, and time analyses. Secondly, access to information is a problem, where the Ninth Malaysia Plan is singularly available at one shop, which is difficult to get to (near Sungai Besi). (But go and get a copy if you can, expensive though: RM80) Finally, I concluded by saying that Freedom of Information will allow for better quality research, which will in turn contribute to better governance; on both the government and corporate fronts.

What we agreed upon was that there's lots of education, training and increasing awareness to be done, convincing civil servants and the public that FoI will in fact benefit everyone! When there's accessibility to information, this provides a feedback mechanism for government and corporate agencies to improve themselves further. If citizens give positive feedback based on this information, then by all means they ought to be happy about it! Why fear when you're doing your duty correctly, right? Anyway, onto the recording.

If I talk too fast and sound very excitable, it's because I am.

If I sound inexperienced on this topic, it's because I am.

But I'm ready and willing to learn! You can't fault that.

Here's the link to the radio panel discussion: Click Here. It will later be available on radio stations.