A Cautionary Tale

Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA) was originally enacted in 1960 during the “Emergency,” the communist insurgency that engulfed the newly independent country in the 1950s and 1960s. That rebellion petered out long ago, but the law is still on the books, proof that “emergency” measures tend to linger long after the emergency has passed because they are useful to the authorities.

Originally aimed at communist insurgents, the Internal Security Act, which provides for unlimited detention without trial, has been used against all kinds of “security” threats, even common criminals, like forgers, and against political activists, student leaders, union bosses and journalists, anyone who challenges authority

Earlier this month human rights groups and former detainees gathered in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, on the 45th anniversary of the passage of the ISA to tell their horror stories and, it was hoped, to renew their determination to force the law’s eventual repeal.

Since 1960 more than 3,500 Malaysians have been held under the law that permits detention for up to two years without trial and allows the Home Minister to renew the detention order indefinitely. One detainee, Loh Meng Liong, was held for 16 years before he was freed in 1982. There is no maximum limit.

The Malaysian experience also demonstrates that torture and unlimited detention go hand in hand. Former ISA detainee Tian Chua, who is now information chief for the opposition New Justice Party, recalled, “We were routinely tortured during interrogations, stripped naked, beaten with broomsticks and threatened with rape.”

Former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was detained under the ISA as late as 1998 for opposing the P.M. He was later tried in court, convicted of sodomy and corruption and served six years in jail until his released last year. Ironically, he had been detained under the ISA as a young politician, protesting treatment of peasants.

The September 11 attacks on the U.S. gave the ISA a fresh lease on life since it provided former PM Mahathir justification for more arrests. About 100 members of the banned Jemaah Islamiah organization, which is believe to have inspired, if not directed the October 2002 Bali bombings, were detained under the act.

Malaysia’s experience is a cautionary tale for the U.S., since, in the wake of the terrorist attack on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, the U.S. has been inching toward its own version of detention without trial, an internal security act in everything but name.

Jose Padilla, an American citizen suspected of wanting to plant a “dirty bomb” in an American city, has now been held in South Carolina for three years without trial as an “enemy combatant.” Earlier this year there was talk funding a special detention center – “Camp 6” – for indefinite incarceration of suspected terrorists.

If the U.S. is moving stealthily toward a policy of indefinite detention, the Blair government in Britain is openly considering a host of new security measures in the wake of July’s terror bombings. One would allow the police to detain a suspect without trial for up to three months instead of the current 14 days.

Washington used to regularly condemn Malaysia’s (and Singapore’s) use of the unlimited detention as a violation of human rights. One doesn’t hear Washington complaining so much these days. Wonder why. Shortly after the terror attacks, President George W. Bush thanked former premier Mahathir Mohamad for Malaysia’s efforts against terrorism.

It should be emphasized that Malaysia is not some tin-pot dictatorship like Zimbabwe. It is a functioning democracy, which is, in many ways, a model for a moderate Muslim-majority state. We should be so lucky if Iraq turned out to be half as stable, prosperous and democratic as Malaysia is today. That’s why the ISA remains such a blight on Malaysia’s democracy.