COMMENT | On Sept 11, 2017 a year before his ouster as prime minister, Najib Abdul Razak penned an article in The Star titled “Democracy and free speech alive”.

Two days later, I challenged his assertions. In an open letter, I asked: “True, but let’s not forget that the government suspended the licence of The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily for three months. Why was this done?

“Your Home Ministry claimed that the two publications’ reporting of 1MDB was ‘prejudicial or likely to be prejudicial to public order, security or likely to alarm public opinion or is likely to be prejudicial to public and national interest’.

“But which article or articles? Both publications have been subsequently vindicated by the publication of various facts and figures provided by law enforcement authorities in Singapore, the United States and Switzerland.”

Has any journalist in the recent past been cited for publishing false news? Yes, there were arrests of journalists and suspension of publishing permits not for publishing fake news but for publishing the truth.

Yesterday, Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil launched the Code of Ethics for Journalists and declared that “there is no...