This issue has brought back into discussion the need to amend the Federal Constitution to establish the fact that the executive must, in no way at all, be influencing the selection of justices in the judiciary.
Many politicians and political parties in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines have been pioneers in how social media is used as propaganda to influence the people and the way they vote.
Still a long way to go before Malaysia has a proper system to handle refugees.
Although we welcome this announcement by the prime minister, we are still waiting to see how suitable the amendments are and how fast they will be implemented.
We need to see how the transition of power in Syria is going to affect religious extremism in our country, and then there is the relationship with Russia and the rest of the world.
What is true is that in any democratic government, a healthy and integral check and balance system needs to exist.
Aside from policies and practices, the social environment journalists work in can affect and influence our press freedom standing as well.
The process of talking can take a long time. It takes some effort to explain things and, it takes even more effort to try to understand things that we don’t understand.
Despite the fact that Malaysia’s press freedom index has dropped, I still think there is hope. Don’t give excuses or defensive deflection. Just tell us what the government is going to do to improve.
When we are able to laugh at ourselves, we realise we are not perfect. It teaches us humility, open mindedness and the realisation that we can do better.
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