The police should not have acted so brutally against a peaceful demonstration for a good cause to abolish the ISA which has stifled the growth of this nation for almost 50 years. The police brutality must be condemned strongly by all peace loving Malaysians.
Today the RAKYAT have spoken — and spoken out loud and clear — against the Internal Security Act (ISA). It makes no difference whether it was a gathering of 10,000, 20,000 or 100,000. The rakyat today want the draconian ISA ABOLISHED — NOT REVIEWED. Under the ISA, the police/government has the power to detain anyone indefinitely without trial. In a democratic society, no one can conscientiously support the ISA in whatever form, as it violates all the basic principles of human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Right (UDHR).
As a former ISA detainee myself, I know of the cruel, degrading and inhuman treatments that detainees had to go through.
Even the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM) had made the following finding in relation to detainees detained under section 73 of the ISA:
“… there appears to be sufficient evidence to justify a finding of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of some of the detainees who testified before the Inquiry Panel. Slapping of detainees, forcible stripping of detainees for non-medical purposes, intimidation, night interrogations, and deprivation of awareness of place and the passage of time, would certainly fall within the ambit of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, by virtue of the need to interpret this term so as to extend the widest possible protection to persons in detention.”
Moreover, Article 5 of the UDHR provides for the right of a person not to be subjected to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Now let’s briefly look into the inception of the ISA.
Why was the ISA enacted in the first place?
We have to look back at the nation’s history to know why the ISA was enacted. In 1948 the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) made a declaration to wrest power through armed struggle. It was only 12 years later that the BN Government declared a state of Emergency on 31 July 1960.
On 21 June 1960 when the then Deputy PM, the late Tun Razak, was tabling the Bill of ISA he explained to Parliament as follows:
“The Hon’ble Prime Minister and other members of Government, including myself, have made it quite clear on a number of occasions that, because the Emergency is to be declared at an end, the Government does not intend to relax its vigilance against the evil enemy who still remains as a threat on our border and who is now attempting by subversion to succeed where he has failed by force of arms. It is for this reason that this Bill is before the House. It has two main aims: firstly to counter subversion throughout the country and, secondly, to enable the necessary measures to be taken on the border area to counter terrorism.” (The emphasis is mine.)
From the said speech, it was crystal clear that the ISA was meant to counter subversion and terrorism. In 1989, the CPM had denounced their armed struggle in Malaysia and had signed a peace treaty with the Malaysian government. Despite the signing of the said peace treaty, the ISA remains in full force until this very day.
Sufficient laws to counter subversion and acts of terrorism
It is clear that the ISA had and has been abused by the government/police to arrest and detain opposition politicians for political activities and other reasons which include alleged falsifying of official documents like passports, criminal offences, religious activities and etc. There is really no need to invoke the ISA. These criminal activities could have been easily dealt with under the existing laws like the Anti-Money Laundering Act, Seditious Act, Penal Code and others.
The specific provisions under Sections 121, 121A, 121B, 121C, 125 and 125C of the Penal Code are more than adequate to counter any terrorism-related offences.
Let’s look at two definitions here which will clearly demonstrate why the draconian ISA is absolutely unnecessary when our current laws and statues are already sufficient to deal with any such ISA-able related offences.
A “TERRORIST ” is any person who:
- Commits, or attempt to commit any terrorist act; or
- Participates in or facilitates the commission of any terrorist act;
A “TERRORIST ACT” is an act or threat of action within or beyond Malaysia that:
- Involves in serious bodily injury to a person;
- Involves in serious damage to property;
- Endangers a person’s life;
- Creates a serious risk to the health or the safety of the public or section of the public;
- Involves use of firearms, explosives or other lethal devices;
- Is designed and intended to disrupt, or seriously interfere, any computer system or the provision of any services directly related to communications inftastructures, banking or financial services, utilities, transportation or other essential infrastructures;
- Is designed and intended to disrupt or seriously interfere with any computer system or the provision of any services directly related to communications infrastructure, banking or financial services, utilities, transportation or other essential infrastructure;
- Involves prejudice to national security or public safety.
It’s plain ain’t it that these provisions above are amply sufficient to counter all the subversion/terrorism threats that may be carried out in the country?
Therefore, it is incumbent on the government to immediately abolish the ISA in order to give meaning to the slogan “People First,” otherwise it will be just mere ‘cakap tak serupa bikin!’
but why only the malyas is out on that days, why are the chinese not out. do there support ISA?????
deadvalley
sebab bangsa cina guna kan kepala otak dia orang untuk berfikir dan melayu gunakan kepala b***h untuk bertindak.
ge12, BN telah di beri amaran dengan 5 negri hilang kuasa dan 2/3 majority di parlimen pun sudah tiada.
maka orang cina akan mengundi pakatan pada ge13 dan BN akan hilang kuasa untuk memerintah negara.
sementara itu orang melayu asyik sibuk terpekik terlolong dijalanan macam orang gila.
namun KENYATAANNYA mereka juga mesti menunggu ge13 untuk menukarkan ISA.
Adakah melayu begitu bodoh dan fikir oleh sebab mereka berdemo maka BN akan hapuskan ISA?
Adakah melayu begitu bodoh dan fikir Agong itu ada kuasa untuk menghapuskan ISA?
YB
Agree with you 100%!
Throw the ISA out and let’s see how BN rules with no automatic arrests without warrants and detentions without trial.
Then the cops will have to get down to honest evidence gathering and advanced CSI methods instead of wild arrests and massaging the crime statistics to make it look as though they are over performing!
dpp
We are all of 1 Race, the Human race. That is all that really matters.
Sorry folks,
BN and PR no diiference – pot calling kettle black.
I hope Malaysians realise, it is not about the rakyat but selected few.
At the end of the day, maybe BN is better as the saying goes. the devil is better than the dark blue sea…
ISA is truly out of context, irrelevant and misused.
No more communist threat. Why keep the ISA? ISA is to protect the security of the UMNOputra and not the country. As YB has pointed out that there are more than sufficient laws combat subversion and terrorism, why ISA?
If Najib is serious to make this country into 1Malaysia and People First nation, then abolish ISA immediately.
lets demo at wangsa maju! lets demo at wangsa maju!
every weekend. @ wangsa maju !
YB ? Beran ?
The police should allow peaceful gathering/demonstration to handover petition to the king. This is part of a democratic society. Where is the freedom of assembly, freedom of movement and freedom of speech in Malaysia.
Are we moving towards a police state?
No more communist threat at all. Why was there a necessity to keep the ISA? ISA must be abolished.
The laws as stated in YB posting are more than sufficient to cover all the eventualities. So the government should not fear. The country is well protected by the existing laws.
May be the positions of the power that may not be sufficiently protected.
Quite honestly, do you really need to demonstrate and caused so much inconvenience for the people. last Friday and Saturday I was caught in bloody jams for almost 2 and half hours – a journey normally took me half and hour became a 3 hours.
Please don”t inconvenience the people. I am against ISA but i am fed up with the inconvenience.
abolish ISA immediately – igt mcm flush toilet papers dlm jamban ka?
agree with chan. so called ‘silent majority’, how bout the othera, or the even BIGGER silent majority who were directly-indirectly effected by the saturday’s street demo? freedom of speech and rights lah konon.
we r truly reversing bck to the zaman batu.
only 20 thousands say dont want ISA…how about the rest 26.8 millions? Does 20 thousands represents 27 millions? Are we sure there is no more communist in this country?
hye there….y United States still jail me in Guantanamo?
Abolish ISA??? We, Malaysian, are not mature enuf to be responsible….our country still very fragile. Anything that happen will quickly turn into racial issue and one crazy so call leader can easily make use of people emotion for his own agenda. ..(so people forgot about his issues…you know what i mean).
Lets have next “peace gathering” against ISA in Wangsa Maju and have also few Mat Selamat there. Ok?
20K only dont want ISA..very few YB…forget about it..just take care your Wangsa Maju..
Hi ‘my name is Isa’,
actually 20k is a hell lot more compared to about a handful of them who was protesting for pro-ISA near central market…i don’t think these few pro ISA boys represent 27million malaysians either..
Still not to late to comment. Agreed that the ISA should be reviewed. The demo is to create havoc. Satan like to create havoc. I think this is the work of datuk saitan anak iblis kind of person.