I READ with much scepticism Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Datuk Zaid Ibrahim’s recent statement that he finds the Internal Security Act (ISA) and Official Secrets Act (OSA) unacceptable.

He was quoted as saying that he is against any unjust and harsh law which includes the ISA and OSA.

However, this was contradicted by Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar who said that such laws will not be abolished, as they are needed for the purpose of maintaining public order. When there are two such conflicting statements, what would be the public stand of the prime minister?

Would he seek to abolish such oppressive laws in the newly convened Parliament in agreement with the minister in his own department? Or would he seek not to, in the interest of the Home Minister’s recent remark?

I would certainly not be surprised if Pak Lah remained defiant in not abolishing the ISA and OSA, as they have served to protect the Barisan Nasional’s interests for the past 51 years after Merdeka. After all, he was the one who authorised the detention of Hindraf activists and accused them on baseless grounds of being a threat to national security.

The Opposition and the vast majority of the general public have long seen the ISA as a notoriously oppressive law. In the name of national security, it has been used as a convenient political tool that allows for indefinite detention without trial. The Act is an obnoxious piece of legislation that has no place in a democracy.

Former detainees have published horrifying accounts of their detention under the ISA where they have been subjected to solitary confinement without access to family members, lawyers and friends. Police interrogators have routinely subjected detainees to physical and mental torture in order to “turn them over”.

All these amount to human rights abuses and a barbaric treatment of individuals who have never been tried, let alone convicted, in an open court. These acts of injustice are an obscene affront to human dignity and make a mockery of democracy. They violate the teachings of all religions in our nation because they demean human life.

The ISA is an unjust law, under which so-called legal practices represent a crime against humanity. As always, the “threat to national security” has been a flimsy catch-all excuse for not charging and trying so-called suspects in open court.

How do you expect the continued existence of the ISA to foster a reformed democratic society when it looms as an ever-present threat over the lives and liberty of ordinary Malaysian citizens? True democracy cannot mature when people are being threatened with detention without trial.

The basic principle of natural justice – that the accused must be given the right to be heard –must be unconditionally upheld. I therefore sincerely hope Zaid and Pakatan Rakyat will pressure the federal government in Parliament into immediately charging and trying all ISA detainees in an open court or release all detainees still incarcerated.

Otherwise, the legal reform pledged by the prime minister through the appointment of Zaid as de facto Law Minister, will be mere rhetoric.


Ashvin Raj
Subang Jaya

Source: The Sun – May 15, 2008