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Malaysia's security
blanket
By Baradan Kuppusamy
KUALA LUMPUR - Behind the gleaming
skyscrapers and the wide, manicured highways with
luxury cars gliding by - the symbols of Malaysia's
vaunted economic success - lurks what one rights
activist calls the "White Terror".
The
preferred weapon of this terror is the Internal
Security Act (ISA), a law passed in 1960, which
provides for indefinite detention without trial.
Ostensibly enacted to fight communist insurgents
it has since been used against all and sundry.
The common denominator is dissent against
the established status quo and any challenge to
the official pecking order of society.
The
ISA is frequently used against forgers,
counterfeiters, Islamists, political opponents and
even people who campaign to abolish the ISA
itself.
It has claimed a steady stream of
victims since 1960. Many survivors gathered this
week to recount the horror they suffered and,
united with NGOs and opposition parties, renewed
their determination to force the repeal of this
draconian law.
They recounted stories of
horror - arrests in the dead of the night,
interrogation for days on end, beatings and
torture, and severe psychological pressure to
recant, confess and join political parties in the
government.
This week marks the 45th
anniversary of the ISA, a convenient reference
point for victims and campaigners to press for the
repeal of the law that has jailed more than 3,500
since 1960.
Many of the ISA's victims were
trade unionists fighting for a fairer wage and the
right to form unions in free trade zones. Others
were student leaders, researchers, academics,
journalists, political activists, religious groups
and NGO activists.
"I was stripped naked
for most of the time I was interrogated," one
victim recounted. "I was interrogated endlessly
and police officers turned up the air conditioner
making the cell freezing cold. They booed me on my
genitals, sneered at me and threatened that I
would become impotent after they had finished with
me."
Police also threatened to rape his
girlfriend if he did not confess, he said. "They
frequently punched, kicked and beat with a
broomstick."
Patricia Lourdes Irene, 54,
who was held for a year in 1987, said she was
threatened with rape if she did not cooperate.
"They said they had raped many times before and I
believed them - it was scary," she said. "It is
just you and them in a cell, you have everything
stacked against you."
Some inmates
developed schizophrenia and never recovered, and
many others suffer constant nightmares, testified
Ban Ah Kam, 59, who was held for 10 years from
1968.
Some were held 60 days, the minimum
period, while others were held for a decade or
more. There is no maximum period prescribed for
detention. Each detention order by the Interior
Minister is for two years and is renewable
indefinitely for two-year periods. One detainee,
Loh Meng Liong, was held for 16 years before he
was freed in 1982.
"The ISA has been kept
in use all this time mainly because it is a very
convenient tool at the disposal of the ruling
coalition," said Kua Kia Soong, director of the
Malaysian Peoples Voice or SUARAM, a leading
human-rights organization.
"It has served
as an instrument of terror of the state and used
consistently against dissidents who have defended
the democratic and human rights of the Malaysian
people."
Former ISA detainee Tian Chua,
who is now information chief of the National
Justice Party (NJP) recalled: "We were routinely
tortured during interrogations, stripped naked,
beaten with broomsticks and threatened with rape."
The NJP is led by opposition icon Anwar
Ibrahim, himself detained under the ISA twice,
once as a student activist protesting against
poverty and again in 1998 when he went against
then prime minister, Mahathir Mohamad, accusing
him of corruption and cronyism.
As part of
the campaign to end the ISA, the former detainees
and their supporters gathered at the state-funded
Malaysian Human Rights Commission or SUHAKAM to
protest, condemn the act and push for its repeal.
"The ISA is a license to torture," Kua
said. "Malaysia cannot call itself a democratic
country while retaining a law that permits gross
violation of human rights."
Later in a
news statement, Kua demanded the government
investigate the numerous claims of torture and
beatings during detention and also bring the
perpetrators to justice.
"All human beings
who were disgusted at the torture and humiliation
of the detainees at Abu Ghraib must open their
eyes to the reality of the ISA," he said referring
to the jail in Iraq where US abuse of Iraqi
prisoners sparked a storm of international
protest. "The government either charges detainees
in an open court or else releases them immediately
and without any condition," he said.
SUHAKAM has urged repeal of the ISA
several times. "Detention without trial is an
extreme form of detention," SUHAKAM commissioner
Siva Subramanian said. "It denies a person the
right to liberty, the right to appear in a public
trial and the right to assume innocence until
proven guilty."
Subramanian admitted that
the government seemed increasingly keen on using
the ISA - even in simple cases like forgery, which
would normally have been dealt with in the courts.
The government has consistently maintained
that the ISA is the single most effective
legislation to maintain racial peace and religious
freedom, and lately to keep terrorists at bay.
About 100 people accused of being members
of the banned Jemaah Islamiah militant
organization have been detained since 2000. Many
of them say they are innocent of the charges.
Several individuals have, however,
confessed, over national television, to being
members of the group blamed for the Bali bomb
blast and other atrocities in Indonesia, and have
been rehabilitated and released. But their
movements are severely restricted.
The
judiciary has a mixed and contradictory record
with regard to the ISA, which legal experts say is
illegal and violates the federal constitution.
Most judges, however, uphold the law as valid
because it was passed by parliament.
SUHAKAM must know that the ISA gives the
Special Branch a license to torture. From its
inception, ISA detentions have gone hand-in-hand
with torture of detainees.
This week
brought together ISA detainees from as far back as
1960s. Every decade has grisly tales of torture
and dark deeds by the Malaysian Special Branch,
which are the scandalous side of the motto
Malaysia Boleh (Malaysia Can).
The biggest
scandal of all is that, to date, none of these
torturers have been brought to justice, nor have
deterrent sentences been passed on them.
A
recent Royal Commission on the Malaysian Police
also avoided confronting this most vital subject -
the white terror of the ISA over any form of
dissent.
As part of the campaign to repeal
the ISA, SUARAM has demanded that the government
investigate all cases of torture, make public the
findings and charge the perpetrators in court.
The voluntary groups would like to see the
abolition of the ISA and all forms of detention
without trial and all detainees either tried in an
open court or released immediately and
unconditionally.
SUARAM said it was of
prime importance to restore the independence of
the judiciary to curb abuses of power by the
police. Finally, SUARAM has urged the Malaysian
government to ratify the international convention
against torture and the covenants on civil and
political rights.
(Inter Press Service) |
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