August 4, 2012
Three ISA Detainees Released, More to Come?
Aidila Razak(08-03-12)@http://www.malaysiakini.com
Three detainees held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) have been released, the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) confirmed today.
“We can confirm that they were released last Friday,” Suhakam commissioner James Nayagam said when contacted. The trio are Malaysian S Loganathan, Sri Lankan P Valentine Jayakumar and Pakistani Malik Rehmat Ali Syakir.
All three were nabbed in 2010 for alleged human trafficking. James said that according to their detention orders, Loganathan was supposed to be released this month, Jayakumar in September while Malik was due to be out in December.
“We are happy that this has come about and hope the others will be released soon,” he said. The release follows several demonstrations by activists at the detention camp at Kamunting, Perak and a prolonged hunger strike by a group of detainees.
Forty-two other detainees are still held under the Act, with about half being foreigners.
‘Instruction by Minister’
Citing the ministry’s public safety and security chief assistant secretary Aswanjaya Abdul Karim, Anti-ISA Movement (GMI) chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh said the release was upon instruction by the Minister.
“(Aswanjaya) said that the trio were released by the minister upon reviewing the security report sent to him,” he said in a joint statement with Suaram coordinator Syukri Razab.
Syed Ibrahim said that while GMI welcome the release, it condemns the selective nature. “What about the other detainees? Shouldn’t they be released seeing that the ISA has been repealed?” he asked.
He added that the early release of the three detainees also shows that the minister has the power to release the detainees even though they have not served out their full detention orders.
“Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein’s excuse that all detainees must serve out their detention orders is no longer relevant,” he said.As such he urged the minister to release all 42 remaining detainees and to explain why they have not been released along with the three. GMI also urges the ministry to make public how it decides if someone is a security risk or not.
This release of ISA detainees is too politically convenient to have the impact that it is calculated to have on the voters. This particular tool in UMNO’s political tool box has been used before in an election year. I remember Mahathir and Musa using the same when they took over office in the ’80s.
UMNO needs the ISA or ISA-like laws just as much as Najib Razak needs his ‘fix’ with the ladies.
The three who were released were detained without trial for alleged human trafficking. For detainees like them to be detained without trial they would have to be deemed a security threat by the Home Affairs Minister. A public trial would involve disclosure of sensitive information. So goes the argument. But what about the rights of the accused? His right to see the evidence and to face his accusers? Never mind that defined as such what is not a security threat? A police corporal humping a GRO from one of the neighborhood karaoke bars owned by a local crime boss is more of a security threat than these three men left in charge of hen houses.
They are not commies of old lurking around corners to do their mischief like those the old goat Hanif Omar said he saw among the BERSIH ‘anarchists’. They are not crime bosses who work hand in glove with the police in mufti, with the latter sitting behind desks that have seen a better part of their life span, working in austere environment by day in one of the floors in a building at Bkt Aman and living it up at karaoke bars with GROs after office hours and then returning to their mistresses at night. Some of these high ranking police in mufti even drive broken down old Proton cars to office just to cover their tracks. They are the ones whose rears the old goat Hanif Omar should be putting his nose to.