Where do we draw the line?

The Panama Papers have taken over the news since last week and the media seems to be having a field day with it. Tax havens have been created in various places with the blessings of respective authorities for the rich and the powerful to hide their wealth and hoard it in secrecy. We are being told that holding an off-shore account is legal, but to use it for criminal purposes is illegal. If these accounts are secret and authorities cannot regulate them, how do we know the purpose of the use of these accounts?

It is obvious that if someone wants to keep a financial secret, he or she has something to hide from some authority in his or her own country, which means that he or she is doing something illegal. The Panamanian law firm has the most secretive banking laws, and a reputation for not cooperating with other countries. A Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the US was signed in 2011, resulting in a flood of off-shore accounts from all over the world. This has been known for the last five years or so and everyone knows what is generally going on at these centres.

However, now that the ‘Panama Papers’ have blown the whistle on what exactly is being done and by whom, everyone mentioned in the expose is scrambling to defend him or herself. Even now, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released data selectively on grounds that revealing all data might harm some “innocent people”. Who is the ICIJ to decide on who is innocent versus guilty?

— The reader is a Sharjah resident.