RIGHTS: Malaysian Anti-Terror Laws Get Tighter Despite Protests

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 28 2005 (IPS) - Malaysian authorities have extended the imprisonment without trial of nine terrorism suspects, detained since June 2001, for another two years, angering human rights activists who have vowed to launch demonstrations to force the government to either release or charge the suspects in court.

The extension came five days ahead of the damning release of a report here, Wednesday, by the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) on how the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) has been used to indefinitely hold detainees who are abused, tortured and beaten to extract confessions.

Some 115 such suspects, mostly Muslims, have been detained without trial under the ISA that allows indefinite detention without trial.

Mere suspicion by police is enough to get an individual imprisoned, initially for 60 days, after which the person is either released or detained for a two-year period.

The two-year period may be extended at the discretion of the Internal Security minister and in the case of the nine suspects, imprisoned since June 2001, have been extended until September 2007.

One detainee, Loh Meng Liong, was held for as long as 16 years before he was freed in 1982.

”What can we doàwe are so helpless with this law that does not respect human rights,” said the mother of one of the nine suspects, whose family members joined human rights activists and opposition politicians to demonstrate against the ISA outside the Kamunting Detention Camp, about 330 km north of the capital, on Saturday.

”In their eyes we are not humans,” the mother told IPS. ”My son’s only crime is that he studied at a madrassa (Islamic seminary) in Pakistan”.

The demonstration by about 250 people was closely monitored by armed policemen and though, it went off without incident, it could be the first in a series that the protestors are planning.

”To detain people year after year without trial is not only uncivilised but is downright barbaric,” said Chang Lih Kang, secretary of Malaysian Peoples Voice or SUARAM, a leading human rights group that organised the demonstration on Saturday.

”We are launching a nationwide campaign to press for the release of all the detainees,” Chang vowed during an interview to IPS. ”They should be released or charged in court”.

The campaign, Chang said, will press demands that the government investigate all cases of torture and make public the findings and charge the perpetrators in court.

It will call for abolition of the ISA and all forms of detention without trial and that all detainees are charged in an open court or released immediately and unconditionally.

Restoration of the independence of the judiciary to curb abuses of power by the police and ratification of the Convention Against Torture and other international covenants on civil and political rights form other demands.

The nine detainees, including the son of the chief minister of opposition- ruled Kelantan state, were due for release last Friday but the government extended their imprisonment on the grounds that they did not show ”any tendencies” to give up their militant views.

All the nine and a few other detainees are accused by the police of being members of either the domestic ‘KMM’ militant group or the regional Jemaah Islamiah movement.

Those released earlier have had to undergo ”rehabilitation” – a process that includes admission that militancy is wrong, confession to all past militant activities and willingness to repent and start over.

Human rights activists however say police have not produced ”a shred” of evidence to support their accusations.

Their arguments against the 45-year-old ISA are now backed up by the HRW report entitled ‘Detained Without Trial: Abuse of Internal Security Act Detainees in Malaysia’, which calls for the immediate release of all ISA detainees and the repeal of the ISA.

The report said the ISA gives the government unchecked powers to detain individuals for long periods without charge, without trial and without judicial review of detentions. ”It is a recipe for abuse,” HRW said.

Based on interviews with family members of ISA detainees and their lawyers and handwritten statements of ISA detainees, the report documents the physical abuse, ill-treatment and humiliation of more than 25 detainees at the Kamunting centre in December 2004.

”Those held under the ISA are defined as a group that has virtually no rights, so it is hardly surprising that prison guards treat them as less than human,” said Brad Adams, executive director of HRW’s Asia Division in a statement.

”I was handcuffed . . . and my head was pushed down to waist level. My head was struck with a baton and my eye was hit, injuring it. When I reached room seven (of the cell block), I was continuously beaten and then forced to strip naked, ordered to crawl while entering the room and then my buttocks were kicked and that was how I stumbled inside, naked,” the report quotes detainee Mohamad Faiq Hafidh, who has been detained since January 2002.

To date, no prison official has been disciplined and the government has not made public the findings of its investigation into the incident.

”ISA detainees have no effective recourse to challenge their detention because the law prevents the courts from reviewing the merits of ISA detentions. Although the law allows judicial review of the procedural requirements for detention, Malaysian courts routinely dismiss habeas corpus petitions challenging ISA detentions,” the report said.

Malaysia’s parliamentary affairs minister Mohamed Nazri justifies the use of the ISA against terrorism suspects. ”They (ISA detainees) have not committed any crime because ISA is preventive. You cannot, therefore, go to court. The government has information that something will happen. We can’t wait till it happens. Lives and property will be lost. So before it happens we detain them,” he said.

HRW said it recognises the government’s need to protect people from terrorism, but it has yet to demonstrate that any of the detainees have actually committed illegal acts or cannot be prosecuted under existing laws.

”Malaysia’s policy amounts to the executive branch presuming the guilt of people without charge or trial,” said Adams. ”The presumption of innocence does not exist for ISA detainees”.

Originally enacted to combat communist insurgents, the ISA was frequently used later to silence government critics and political opponents of the ruling United Malay National Organisation or UMNO.

Malaysia should end its use of ISA detention and rely on its robust criminal law and capable judiciary to tackle security and other alleged crimes, the report said.

”Malaysia aspires to be a leader in the region and a developed country by 2020,” said Adams. ”The ISA is not a sign of leadership or development – it is a sign of repression”.

HRW said that long-term critics of the ISA, notably the United States, have been silent since the Sep. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington.