MALAYSIA: After Detainees’ Release, Activists Target Security Law

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Jun 3 2003 (IPS) - When about 200 activists outside Malaysia’s Kamunting jail on Sunday demanded the release of six opposition leaders, they had no inkling they were about to score a major victory against a draconian security law used to keep these dissenters behind bars.

But now that four of the six have been freed, activists are looking beyond their unexpected release – and are aiming for nothing less than the repeal of the Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows detention without trial.

At the same time, their euphoria is tempered with caution. Few critics are ready to say that the release – which came at the expiry of the two-year detention orders for the six – means that the government has become kinder or more respectful of human rights.

”I will believe it when (Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister) Abdullah (Badawi) repeals the ISA law,” remarked opposition politician Mustapha Ali. ”The ISA is an entrenched piece of legislation that is not easily repealed. . . the police will not allow it.”

Opposition leaders like Wan Azizah Wan Ismail have quickly called for the repeal of the law, a colonial relic that was first enacted for use against communist rebels but later applied against government critics.

Since independence in 1957, the ISA has been used to detain over 3,200 people and many had been accused generally of seeking to undermine national security.

Opposition leader Lim Kit Siang called for a ”full parliamentary debate for the repeal of the ISA”, but said Sunday’s release a ”face-saving measure” for Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is in France for the Group of Eight (G8) meeting.

”He (Mahathir) did not want to be questioned in Evian about their detention, not when European parliaments are incensed that preventive detention is used in Malaysia against political opponents, with broad hints that it could worsen bilateral ties. The United States is not happy about it either,” said media commentator M G G Pillai.

”Dr Mahathir wisely decided discretion is the better part of valour and meekly submitted. He wants no more egg on his face than he has,” he wrote in a commentary Tuesday.

On Sunday, government officials did not issue an extension of the current detention orders of the six – an extension would have meant another two years’ detention.

For instance, to his surprise, officials took Saari Sungib, one of the six detainees, to the bus station, pressed a bus ticket in his hands and told him he was free. By midnight the police had released four detainees and confirmed they would release the last two leaders on Jun. 12.

Among the detainees were five top leaders of the National Justice Party or Parti Keadilan of jailed former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, now led by his wife, Wan Azizah. These are Ezam Mohamed, Tian Chua, Saari Sungib, Lokman Adam and Dr Badrul Amin, arrested in April 2001 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government – charges that the party vehemently denied as political victimisation.

The other is journalist and independent film producer Hishamuddin Rais, who along with Chua have yet to get their freedom since they are under remand.

In September, even the much-maligned Federal Court, the country’s highest, declared their arrest and detention unlawful and said there was ample evidence of political motivation behind the arrest.

Police seem more interested in gathering political intelligence and details of the opposition leaders’ sex lives then protecting national security, one of the judges declared.

Even the ISA review board, which critics see as a government lackey, had twice recommended the detainees’ release.

The government-appointed National Human Rights Commission also demanded their release and repeal of the ISA. However, activists have expressed concern about the commission’s proposed substitutes for the ISA – which it said can be modelled after the U.S. Patriot Act and other terrorism-related legislation passed after Sep. 11, 2001.

In recent weeks, pressure mounted with lawmakers from Britain, Japan and the Netherlands and a group of 40 Islamic scholars and international rights organisations like Amnesty International calling for their release.

Unnamed government officials told the local media that the detainees were released because they were no longer considered a threat to national security. ”We hope they have learnt their lesson and desist from anti-government activities,” a senior official said.

There are about 120 ISA detainees at present, many of them targetted under the government’s anti-terrorism campaign.

Several are members of the Jemaah Islamiyah group, which has been branded as terrorist by several governments and which seeks a pan-Islamic state in South-east Asia. Police, however, have not furnished evidence.

Still, the man who signed the detainees’ release orders, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, has won some kudos for himself and has confirmed perceptions by some that he was less tolerant of dissent. Abdullah is set to take over from Mahathir when he retires in October, after 22 years in power.

But the detainees’ release is a boost not just for Abdullah but for Parti Keadilan, which has been drifting with its top leaders in detention.

The party is expected to renew the stalled campaign to secure the release of former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, who is in jail on sodomy and corruption charges that his camp says were part of a conspiracy against him after he fell out with Mahathir in 1998.

The case of Anwar, himself an ISA detainee at one point, is by no means unrelated to that of the freed detainees. Pillai says that the detainees were held for their links to Anwar, and that now ”it is the turn of Anwar’s release”.

Reports say that Islamic governments in the Middle East have expressed concern about Anwar’s continued imprisonment. ”With the Organisation of Islamic Conference summit in October (in Malaysia), in what is to be his (Mahathir’s) crowning achievement in office, could he withstand the pressures of OIC leaders, as he could not the European leaders?” asked Pillai.