| |
Malaysia's lopsided
policies
By Anil Netto
PENANG, Malaysia - The Malaysian government's
defiance of a judicial order for the release of a
suspected militant on the grounds of lack of evidence
has re-sparked a controversy over draconian security
laws.
The rearrest of Nasharuddin Nasir, a
trader from the central state of Selangor, has also
exposed the Malaysian government's contradictory view on
the treatment of Muslims. Malaysia has condemned the
West's policies toward Muslims, while it continues to
clamp down on them at home.
Nasharuddin was
arrested under the controversial Internal Security Act
(ISA), which allows indefinite detention without trial,
last Saturday after the high court in Shah Alam had
unexpectedly ordered his release the previous day,
citing lack of evidence. He was among 14 others held for
alleged militant activities in April.
The
judicial decision last Friday raised eyebrows as it
appeared to go a step further than a federal court
decision on September 6 involving five other ISA
detainees. In that landmark decision, Malaysia's highest
court had ruled that the initial 60-day detention (for
the purposes of interrogation) of five political
activists and supporters of jailed ex-deputy premier
Anwar Ibrahim was illegal and made in bad faith. But the
federal court disappointed rights groups when it
concluded that it had no power to decide whether the
Home Affairs Minister's subsequent two-year detention
order under another provision of the ISA was also
unlawful.
Against this precedent, High Court
Judge Suriyadi Halim Omar's decision last Friday that
Nasharuddin should be freed was unexpected - though some
observers felt that he could have ordered Nasharuddin to
be brought to court and freed like another judge had
done last year.
While the news of Nasharuddin's
rearrest was reported by the New Sunday Times, a
barometer of establishment thinking, without much
comment, columnist Munir Majid slammed the treatment of
suspected Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. "The
US says it can hold them until the war on terrorism is
over. The US calls them 'unlawful combatants' and they
are in a legal limbo. No legal rights or protection
whatsoever, appalling and inhumane conditions of
captivity. There is no justification for all this," he
wrote.
Such establishment views that ignore
domestic repression are a bit rich, considering that the
vast majority of those held without trial under the ISA
in Malaysia - including all the 70-odd suspected
militants - are Muslim.
The recent attempts at
judicial review of ISA detentions appear to have
unsettled the government, prompting Rais Yatim, a
minister in the Prime Minister's Department, to announce
over the weekend that the government would amend the ISA
to curb judicial scrutiny of the grounds for detention.
Those remarks have worried rights activists who think
that the government might amend the law to prevent any
legal challenge to ISA detentions altogether.
The Malaysian Bar Council responded on Monday by
reiterating its call for the repeal of the ISA.
Many analysts now see the emergence of political
Islam as the biggest challenge towards the ruling
coalition in Malaysia. And there is a sense that the
government has deftly meshed the "security" threat with
the challenge posed by the political opposition.
In September 1998, the multi-ethnic but
Malay-Muslim-dominated reformasi movement was
unleashed after Anwar's ouster. It joined forces with
civil society groups in calling for a broad range of
democratic reforms. But a relentless crackdown against
the movement and ideological differences among
opposition parties dissipated the burst of optimism and
hope. It weakened the moderate middle ground and drove
many Muslims toward the embrace of the opposition Parti
Islam SeMalaysia (PAS), with its avowed goal of setting
up an Islamic state as a panacea for what ails the
country. The PAS now controls the east coast states of
Kelantan and Terengganu.
The disquiet simmers.
The latest grouse: a crackdown on religious schools and
some mosques as the government tries to win over the
majority Muslim population. Over the last month, the
government has withdrawn financial aid to all 2,500
private religious schools. In Kedah, Prime Minister
Mahathir Mohamad's home state, which PAS is trying to
wrest control of, sermons in some mosques will be
videotaped or audio taped to curb allegedly
"anti-government" sermons. Some of these schools and
mosques have been accused of spreading anti-government
propaganda. Public political gatherings - or
ceramahs as they are called here - have been
banned in most places.
Still, Nasharuddin's
release and rearrest the following day has put the
government on the defensive. It also confirmed the
belief among many critics that the evidence against the
ISA detainees may not stand up to scrutiny in court -
which could explain why none of the 120-odd ISA
detainees has been charged in court.
And while
the Malaysian government rages against the treatment of
Muslims in the West, it continues to suppress Muslim
political dissent locally. Ironically, through its
iron-fisted ways of curbing such dissent and restricting
democratic space, it risks antagonizing local Muslim
sentiment even further.
(©2002 Asia Times Online
Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com
for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
