The pressure is coming from within the Barisan Nasional as well as civil liberties groups, as the government seeks to fulfil its pledge of revamping one of its most controversial and hated laws.

The promised review will get under way this week when the Law Reform Committee holds its first meeting tomorrow, Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Liew Vui Keong said.

He was quoted in The Star yesterday as saying the committee will look into law reforms, including the ISA, which allows for preventive detention of those deemed to be a threat to national security.

‘The ISA is a law that is close to the hearts of many and we will work together with the Home Ministry to amend the relevant parts,’ he said.

Expectations run high. This is, in part, due to Prime Minister Najib Razak’s actions recently to introduce wide-ranging reforms in different areas.

His administration had abolished the 30 per cent bumiputera quota for 27 sub-sectors in the service sector, liberalised some areas of the financial sector and made it a policy to stop forced conversion of children to Islam.

When he became Prime Minister a month ago, he also released 13 ISA detainees, including two from the Hindu Rights Action Force. The group had led thousands of Indians onto the streets two years ago to demand assistance for the community.

Mr Ragunath Kesavan, president of the Malaysian Bar which groups the country’s 13,000 lawyers, said it was positive that the government has realised the public sentiment towards the ISA.

‘There is gradual acceptance that the powers under the ISA are too wide, and some kind of tacit admission that it has been abused,’ he told The Straits Times.

Source : The Straits Times, May 5 2009

First of all, the Internal Security Act (ISA), which was enacted in 1960, allows and provides for arbitrary arrest and detention without trial for an indefinite period. Under the ISA, detainees can be held for up to 60 days in secret locations and in solitary confinement, often in a windowless cell where they lose all sense of time and are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. Detainees have been assaulted, forced to strip, deprived of sleep, food and water, told that their families would be harmed, and subjected to prolonged aggressive interrogation to force confessions or obtain information from them.

GMI wishes to reiterate that various local and international organizations including National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), have recognized that the ISA which allows violence, torture, humiliation and indefinite detention without trial is a violation of fundamental human rights.

Secondly, GMI is appalled with the claim that “there have been demands from various human rights groups as well as the United Nations for the Guantanamo to be closed but no one has asked for the ISA to be abolished”. This is a blatant lie! GMI views the statement by Ahmad Shabery Cheek as an ignorant and arrogant attempt to justify continuous use of the draconian ISA. Since 2001, Gerakan Mansuhkan ISA (Abolish ISA Movement, GMI) a coalition of 83 NGO’s and community groups have been actively campaigning against ISA. Numerous reports and memorandums have been handed over to Suhakam, the PM’s office and the Internal Affairs Ministry to abolish ISA.

GMI strongly urge the Government not to apply double standards while calling for fair trials for the Malaysians in Guantanamo yet ignoring the right to trial for those who have been detained under the ISA in Malaysia. “Emergency” laws in Malaysia disregard human rights and violate the safeguards contained in the Federal Constitution and international human rights law.

We call on the Malaysian government to immediately repeal the ISA and return the legitimate rights of the people to fair and open trial.

Abolish ISA!

Release All ISA Detainees!!

Close Down Kamunting Detention Camp!!!

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