FAC News - Friday, June 7, 2002 10:24 AM

Public Inquiry on ISA detentions on 17 June 2002

Malaysia’s Human Rights Commission (SUHAKAM) will be conducting a public inquiry into the Internal Security Act (ISA) detentions. This was decided at its meeting yesterday.

The public inquiry will be held somewhere in or around Kamunting to facilitate the ISA detainees testifying at the inquiry, which will be open to the media and members of the public.

It is not known how many days would be required to hear the testimonies of all the witnesses scheduled to be called, but, if all are called, then it should stretch into at least a week or two.

This inquiry is one of the demands of the 12-day hunger strike held at the Pusat Tarbiyah PAS in Taman Melewar, Kuala Lumpur, from 10 to 21 April 2002.

Six of the ISA detainees in the Kamunting Detention Center plus 15 Reformasi activists launched a simultaneous hunger strike to protest the ISA detentions.

Anwar Ibrahim joined the hunger strike on the fifth day but was advised by the government doctors to at least take some liquids so that he could continue taking his medication for his excruciating back pain. During a medical examination, the doctors discovered that Anwar’s left leg could not move and they were worried he could become paralysed.

The other demands of the hunger strike are:

1. That the ISA detainees either be released or be brought to trial if there is any evidence they have committed any crime as alleged. (They were alleged to be involved in a conspiracy to bring in guns, bombs, rocket launchers and Molotov Cocktails).

2. That Anwar Ibrahim be allowed to undergo medical treatment for his spinal injury as stipulated in the Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners Adopted and Proclaimed by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 45/111 of 14 December 1990.

This inquiry will be a landmark in the fight to get the ISA abolished. Since 1960, an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 people have been arrested and detained without trial and about 100 still remain under detention in Kamunting.

Last year, a Shah Alam High Court Judge ruled the ISA arrests as unlawful and said that the ISA should either be reviewed or abolished as it had outlived its purpose. He also released two of the ISA detainees, N. Gobalakrishnan and Ghani Haroon, who had filed Writs of Habeas Corpus.

The ISA was originally enacted to combat the Communist Terrorists at the Malaysian-Thai border. However, since then, the Malayan Communist Party has been disbanded and a peace treaty signed with the Malaysian Government officially ending the war. The ISA, though, was never abolished and is now being used to silence political dissidents and opponents to Malaysian Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohammad.