COMMENT | The enforced disappearance of human rights

COMMENT | If Malaysians are not moved by the judicial attempt of the wife of Amri Che Mat to compel the release of the findings of a task force report into the 2016 enforced disappearance of her husband currently classified under the Official Secrets Act (OSA), we are closer to being a banana republic than you think.

Surely, the state has a duty to ensure Amri Che Mat’s wife, Norhayati Mohd Ariffin, is availed of the findings of this report.

Given that she has not yet been given access to such important information, Norhayati, last Thursday filed a judicial review leave application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court, seeking to quash the OSA classification so that she could access the report to strengthen her related civil action against the police (PDRM) and the federal government over her husband's disappearance.

On April 3, 2019, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) had concluded that Amri was a victim of enforced disappearance.

The public enquiry also unanimously concluded that the perpetrators were members of the Special Branch from Bukit Aman police headquarters. This was a shocking conclusion by Malaysia’s national human rights commission.

Two months after that, the Home Ministry formed a special task force to re-investigate the disappearances of Amri Che Mat and Raymond Koh but apparently, the task force’s report has been classified as...