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This is the third part of Malaysian Digest's exclusive interview with President of Gerakan Mansuh ISA (GMI) Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh. To see the second part click here.
Malaysian Digest: The government has always been protective of ISA. They’ve been saying it’s for national security when it’s more about protecting their political interest against potential threats; But is there more to it than just that?
Syed Ibrahim: I believe it’s more than that. Those days they see ISA as a very convenient political tool. I would say they can use it for anything at all and they do have the capability to use it for any reason.
There have been no real changes in ISA even though it has been mentioned a lot by Hishammuddin and the government. What has changed from the 60s to now is that there is no more judicial review. So it has been made stricter because of certain cases, one being during the ten arrests of Reformasi activists in 2001.
At that time they put up a case for habeas corpus case and won but the activists were still not freed because they were detained under section 8. It was just an academic exercise but I would say it was a good case and precedent to other cases like that. After that case, the government actually enacted a change to ISA to make sure it’s stricter in that you cannot challenge anything subjective or objective in the courts of law.
MD: Can you explain what is meant by subjective and objective?
SI: Subjective refers to the reason for detention, for example, the threat to national security. Previously this was enough but after the habeas corpus case in 2001 the courts decided the ISA should be proven in objective form. So if you detain a person you must have a reason and it can’t be just the ’threat to national security’ but they must indicate ‘why’, for example, the detainees produced bombs or involved in terrorist activities. So there must be a certain definition - that’s objective.
If you look at other cases like forgery of documents, for example, I think these are not political, or maybe it is, but it is done for the interest of certain people. It’s done to cover up certain loopholes in the government machinery or to cover up certain syndicates that would be linked to politicians. Otherwise why would they detain people under ISA when we have the Immigration Law and Registration Law that can actually be used against forgery of passport and other documents?
So it’s more than just to suppress political dissent and terrorism. To me it’s all of those and more.
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"We will not be satisfied with just the amendment of the ISA. We need for it to be abolished."
SUHAKAM has recommended that the ISA should be repealed by a new comprehensive legislation that, while taking a tough stand on threats to national security (including terrorism), does not violate basic human rights. Do you agree with this move or do you feel that anything of this sort is totally unnecessary?
The recommendation of SUHAKAM was made in 2003 where they came up with this review of ISA 1960. In their recommendation they proposed for the abolishment of ISA and for the establishment of a new act which is called Anti-Terrorism Act. Of course we are very much for it and we have always been asking the government to consider this because this is something that’s been investigated and researched by SUHAKAM and SUHAKAM is considered as the independent body for human rights in Malaysia.
We don’t see a reason why the government has to amend it because there’s already a proposal by SUHAKAM and a lot of reasons and justifications on why ISA should be abolished and why we should come up with a different act without jeopardizing human right and the rule of law.
Tell us about some of the reported human right violations that takes place in ISA in terms of persecution.
There are things that many people are not aware of that needs to be mentioned. One is the rights for detainees to practice their religion freely. In Kamunting they are not given the right to perform Friday prayers. They can perform the five daily prayers but not Friday prayers. Their reason given is because they are not able to control the security of the detention centre and the detainees. That is a very simple right but it has been violated since 1960 to now.
They have also violated the basic rights to provide for love and sustenance for the family. When they are detained for reasons that they do not know and for an indefinite time period they lose the opportunity to provide the love and sustenance for their family. So the family have to provide for their own and the wife have to work and their children have to be on their own. There have also been cases where families have been broken where the wife divorces the husband while the husband is being detained.
Thirdly, they get visitation rights but this is given selectively. Certain detainees are given the visitation rights where they can touch each other but there are detainees that are kept behind a glass screen during visitations.
What determines who gets what type of contact from visitors?
It’s very ambiguous. We don’t know. The only reason we can think of is they way want to break down the detainees and their families to make sure that whatever spirits that they have would be broken. Some of the wives would work towards fighting for the freedom of their husbands so maybe this is a way to get back at the detainees and their family members - you’re being loud out there, we’ll restrict your visitation.
These things looks like minor rights but if you look at it, these are the tortures that the detainees and their families go through. They are already being detained but visitation rights and other things are also being selectively given and restricted.
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President of Gerakan Mansuh ISA Syed Ibraim Ayed Noh during a demonstration near Masjid Jamek.
Do you think GMI is getting closer to reaching your goal in abolishing ISA?
Yes. Definitely. If you look at it, in 2001 there were hundreds of people who were detained under ISA and it went up after 9/11. Later on, the struggle is not to ensure the detainees are being released but also to abolish ISA.
Along the way, I think, the awareness of the people have grown and, certainly, because of this, the government is now very careful about using ISA. They also know that there’s this group, GMI, who’s there to look over them and report about it. The government is very secretive about it and won’t issue statements whenever they detain or release someone. They would just release you somewhere at a bus station and leave it at that.
We have the connections and access to these type of information so we will expose it by putting up statements and bring it to SUHAKAM. All these things creates pressure on the government to make sure that while they still have this law and they can use it but they have to be very, very careful from now on. Even the slightest mistake, like the allegation on Tan Hoon Cheng, would create a very difficult position for the government.
The government can still be snobbish about it and just say “the person is a threat to national security so that’s why we detained him” and not need to give any other information. They can actually do that but then again it paints a very negative picture of the government and I think this shows in the results of the 2008 General Election.
We also held a big demonstration in August 1 last year where tens of thousands of people came down to Sogo, Masjid Negara and Masjid Jamek. Of course the police and FRU came and for the first time in the history of Malaysia over 500 people were detained. Some were detained even before they were able to converge but it was a very big event and it brought about talks on amendments to ISA. It’s been talked about before but it was never that specific. There were not even a plan on when these amendments going to take place. I think the holding of that big assembly put further pressure on the government to make changes.
So I think we have made a lot of inroads in achieving the objectives of GMI and we hope that we’ll be able to do more after this. We will not be satisfied with just the amendment of the ISA; We need for it to be abolished. We also hope that people will keep supporting us in this issue. We are fighting for all. It’s not just for politicians and human rights activists but for anybody who’s been detained under ISA.
How hard was it to get a permit for the demonstration?
We don’t feel it’s necessary because, for us, freedom of assembly is enshrined under the constitution. It’s something that’s within our rights to freely assemble at a place we find suitable although we do inform the police and we make public statements to tell them where we’re going to be and what our intentions are. We’re very transparent so we don’t find it necessary to apply for a permit especially if it’s a permit to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.
In our opinion, a permit is just for you to inform the police about the event and how many people is expected to be there and the necessary security precautions that are needed. The police should be there to protect our safety but not to curb people’s freedom to express themselves and I think that is what happened. The more they do that the more the people will get angry.
You mean the demonstrators right?
Of course; but the people who were there shopping and stuff were angry as well. They’d say ‘Oh, you guys do this demo and causing us difficulties’; but if the procession was being controlled by the police and given a permit to move and assemble peacefully I don’t think anything would happen. What happened then was people were assembling peacefully but then the police just came without warning and shoot their water canons and tear gas.
So there were many injustices in the way the police handled the assembly?
I think in any of these assemblies it’s bound to happen. Police have been violating a lot of things. For example, lots of people were detained even before the demo started. They were just walking around but were sent to lock up for wearing a certain colour. I mean, curbing us from our freedom to assemble peacefully is a violation to me.
I heard the pro-ISA people were also suppose to turn up that day.
They didn’t turn up. We know they didn’t have a clear plan of what they wanted to do. They just wanted to there to provoke and ensure that there’s havoc and the police would take action.
What I told the press at that time was ‘Why are they doing it on the same day?’. We have been putting our intention to do this demonstration for many, many months before that while they just announced it a couple of weeks before. Secondly, why are they doing it at the same place? The police should have questioned their intention instead of questioning us.
Who was behind the pro-ISA demonstration? Was it someone from UMNO Youth?
I’m not sure if it was UMNO Youth but they’re probably UMNO-linked but I know they are mostly Malay-linked organizations and they were saying that we need the ISA to protect the Malay and bumiputra interest. I think this is a very negative or false perception of ISA. People in the ministries and government servants have been brainwashed to believe we need ISA to protect the Malay rights and we don’t have ISA the Chinese will take over and we don’t have any other law to protect us. I think we should think the opposite of that. If the Malay is strong and we have Islam why should we be afraid of other races, you know? We should live in harmony at the same time. If you have ISA how can we live in harmony?
If you ask the Chinese, they’ll tell you that they are fearful of the ISA. They know that the minute they do anything that would jeopardize the peace or raise certain issues with regard races they could be detained under ISA. I don’t think the pro-ISA really understand the situation.
Seriously, the way we should look at it is, we don’t need ISA because we are tolerant people of different races and religion who lives in harmony and respect each other. This is the best position that we should be in and not because we are fearful of something. ISA creates this culture of fear and I really believe that if we don’t have ISA, we’ll eliminate this culture of fear and we’ll be able to propagate a better harmonious Malaysia. It’s as simple as that.
Talking about the Malay interest, what’s your take on the NEP (New Economic Policy)?
I think, to a certain extent, the intention to have it is right. Yes, the Malays are behind but that doesn’t mean that you should do it by oppressing or taking things away from the Chinese and Indians unfairly. If you do it, you need to do it fairly. Of course, as the Malays are lagging behind, we provide special programmes for them but it should not be done at the expense of interest of the Chinese and Indians. I think this is how it should be done. NEP is okay with me but we have to look at how it is being executed. The problem is with the execution.
Staying on the same subject, do you feel that the modern Malays are ready to compete without the aid of NEP?
I don’t have any solid evidence or background to help me on this. I would say, generally speaking, we are moving towards that. We’re probably not there yet.
The problem is in the execution, not the programme. We have Malays that have certain power or influence who are corrupt so we have Malays who are very rich but there are also Malays who are very poor and we have to give them (the poor) the right opportunity. Meanwhile, the Chinese know about this so they praise these Malays to get what they want from them. It’s a good combination for them but, as a whole, it’s not good for the country. We have the very rich Malays as well as Chinese who benefited from the corrupt practices. Meanwhile, the poor people of each race tend to end up nowhere because they are not given the opportunity.
In order for it to really happen in a very fair and just manner… it cannot happen under the current BN government. The system and methodology that’s being used is too corrupt. For it to happen you have to change the government. Related News
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