Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has accused Putrajaya of endangering general interest with its widening crackdown on the media amid scandals plaguing Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

“The reprisals against investigative journalists, the increase in censorship in recent months, and now the proposed amendment designed to persecute whistleblowers and journalists clearly show that the government has taken the authoritarian road.

“The government needs to realise that it is Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak’s policy of censoring and suppressing information, and its political and economic consequences that are endangering the general interest, and not the corruption revelations," said head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk Benjamin Ismaïl.

RSF said the government has now prioritised the intimidation of journalists and whistleblowers, following a series of corruption scandals.

The Paris-based NGO said plans to amend the Official Secrets Act 1972 to penalise whistleblowers and journalists is a "flagrant intimidation".

"Under the amendment, journalists could be prosecuted for refusing to name the source of their information and maximum penalties would be increased to life imprisonment and 10 strokes of the cane.

As things stand, the penalty for divulging official secrets is one to seven years in prison." it said.

It noted that the government had blocked whistleblower site Sarawak Report which published articles on the scandals, including the deposits of RM2.6 billion into Najib's personal bank accounts and issued a warrant of arrest against its editor Clare Rewcastle Brown.

It added that the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission also blocked Medium.com , where Sarawak Report articles were reproduced to circumvent the initial censorship.

Furthermore, media outlets which covered the issue, including The Edge Weekly and The Edge Financial Daily , were also suspended for three months.

"Four news blogs – Syedsoutsidethebox, Tabunginsider, Fotopages and Din Turtle – were blocked by the media regulator on 27 Jan.

"The authors of these blogs and their content (Tabunginsider is a whistleblower and Din Turtle a well-known critic of the prime minister) are very different but they all irritated the government," it said.

Najib has denied any wrongdoing and was cleared by the Attorney-General's Chambers.

The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is appealing the decision not to prosecute.

Malaysia is ranked 147th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2015 press freedom index.