FAC News - Thursday, April 24, 2003 2:20 PM

The Malaysian government’s song and dance

On 10 April 2001, the Deputy Prime Minister cum Home Minister denied that anyone had been arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA). “If they had, I would know about it, as I would have to sign the papers,” explained Abdullah Ahmad Badawi in a press conference in Parliament.

That same evening, it was announced on prime time news that there had in fact been ISA arrests earlier that day.

The government then tried to explain that the arrests were done by the police based on evidence it procured against those detained. These people were undoubtedly guilty of jeopardising national security, argued the government.

The next day, the Prime Minister announced that those detained had intended to commit a crime and the detention was merely “preventive detention”, to ensure they did not commit the crime they were planning to.

Yes, there is evidence. No, there is no evidence. Yes, they did commit a crime, No, they only intended to commit a crime.

And so the run around went – a classic and to-the-script song and dance the Malaysian government has been programmed to dish out to confused Malaysians, further confused by the blow-hot-blow-cold responses of the government.

Then the Shah Alam High Court released two of the detainees on grounds that the detention was mala fide and unconstitutional. Then the Federal Court declared the detention of the remaining equally mala fide and unconstitutional.

But the government still refused to release the ISA detainees on grounds that it is not the court but the Advisory Board that has the final say on whether they are released or not.

Then the Advisory Board recommended that the detainees be released. But it still did not happen. It seems the Advisory Board too can be ignored by the government.

Who or what, then, can determine whether the ISA detainees get to taste freedom?

This was answered by the Deputy Home Minister, Chor Chee Heung, who said that the fate of the “Reformasi Six” - Ezam Mohd Nor, Tian Chua, Hishamuddin Rais, Saari Sungib, Dr Badrulamin Bahron and Lokman Noor Adam - will depend on whether they are still a threat to national security.

But who determines whether the six are still a threat to national security, if indeed they were a threat in the first place? The Shah Alam High Court has said they are not. The Federal Court too said the same. And the only “authorised” body to detain or release anyone under the ISA, the Advisory Board, has recommended the detainees’ release – all to no avail. It looks like only one man, the Home Minister, has absolute and final say in the matter.

“That the Reformasi activists who were detained under the ISA two years ago in April 2001 were threats to national security had been a fiction right from the very beginning,” said Lim Kit Siang, the Chairman of the Democratic Action Party. “And this was why Suhakam had immediately come out with a statement after a special meeting on 11th April 2001 calling for their immediate release.”

“Suhakam could not be accused of being soft or unmindful about security considerations when it made the call for the immediate release of the Reformasi activists, as its Chairperson was none other than former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Tan Sri Musa Hitam.”

“In May 2001, the Shah Alam High Court made judicial history when Justice Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus became the first judge in the 21st century to grant the habeas corpus application of two Reformasi activists detained under the ISA and freed N. Gobalakrishnan and Abdul Ghani Haroon,” said Lim.

“If not for Justice Hishamudin's decision, both would have joined the ranks of the ‘Refomasi Six’ and would be languishing in the Kamunting detention centre now as threats to national security.”

“In September last year, the Federal Court pronounced on the mala fide of the ISA arrests by the police against the Reformasi activists and which by extension, should have invalidated the subsequent Minister's order of detention against them, which was why Suhakam issued a statement dated 17 September 2002 calling on the Home Minister to review and release the Reformasi activists in the spirit of the Federal Court decision.”

“But this was completely ignored, showing the government's total lack of commitment to the rule of law.”

“Although the two-year ISA detention order for the Reformasi activists would only expire in June, they have all been detained for more than two years and the farce of their being threats to national security should come to an end, as everybody knows that their detention were purely politically-motivated.”

“DAP calls on the Home Minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to order their immediate release from detention instead of dragging out the full two years of their formal detention, let alone toying with the notion of extending their detention with a new order for another two years in Kamunting.”