Torture tales should deter indefinite
detentions By Anil
Netto
PENANG, Malaysia - The torture of Iraqi
prisoners and fresh allegations of abuse by Malaysian
detainees have raised some uncomfortable questions in
Malaysia in recent weeks. The news has put the spotlight
on how security detainees and remand prisoners are
treated under Malaysia's own laws and questioned the
whole basis of "preventive detention".
When news
of the torture first broke, Prime Minister Abdullah
Badawi lashed out at the treatment of Iraqi prisoners by
US forces: "There is no excuse for what happened. We
cannot accept it, and there is no justification at all
for such inhuman behavior." He said that the United
States and the United Kingdom could not just "wash off
their guilt" by expressing shock but had to show their
commitment in upholding the human rights of the
prisoners.
His comments prompted a response from
Dr Syed Husin Ali, deputy president of the opposition
People's Justice Party (Keadilan), who said that
Abdullah should look at the brutality in his own
backyard. In the 1970s, Syed Husin was detained for six
years under the feared Internal Security Act (ISA).
"During my six-year detention under ISA, many
detainees, especially those accused of being
'communist', 'pro-communist' or 'Islamic
fundamentalists', related numerous stories of how they
were threatened, humiliated and tortured by their
interrogators," he said.
A wire service news
report this week piled on the pressure. It said a report
by independent activists containing a litany of
complaints of prisoner abuse had been handed over to
Malaysia's human rights commission, Suhakam. According
to the report, suspected members of Jemaah Islamiya,
which is said to be linked to al-Qaeda, complained they
had been slapped, kicked, stripped and subjected to
sexual abuse by interrogators. The detainees are being
held under the ISA, which allows for indefinite
detention without trial.
The authorities reacted
quickly to try and limit the damage. Deputy Internal
Security Minister Noh Omar said when he visited the
Kamunting Detention Camp north of Kuala Lumpur last
month, the ISA detainees did not complain of abuse -
hardly surprising to many observers given that the
detainees' early release depends on how well they are
"rehabilitating".
"Just because we have a
similar camp, they want to portray a similar situation
to what is taking place in Iraq," said Noh. The
inspector general of police, Mohd Bakri Omar, meanwhile
described the allegations as serious and promised to
look into them.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister
Abdullah Badawi said there was no truth to allegations
that detainees under the feared ISA were abused. "I have
never heard anything specific about such atrocities,
unlike those which we have seen taking place at the Abu
Ghraib prison in Iraq," he said. "I dare say that there
are no such abuses like those which occurred in Abu
Ghraib."
But his remarks earned a swift retort
from Syed Husin. "Abdullah knows, the police know and
the public also know that under police custody, in
lock-ups, in prisons and in secret holding centers,
prisoners have been deprived of sleep, forced to
simulate sexual acts and beaten up, and in some cases
even to death," countered Syed Husin. On Thursday, the
Abolish ISA Movement, comprising 82 civil society
groups, handed in a memorandum listing details of
alleged abuse to a commission on police reform.
Perhaps the most high-profile example of
brutality in custody was none other than that of former
deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim, who was initially detained
under the ISA in 1998. Anwar was beaten senseless on the
night of his arrest by the country's then-police chief
Rahim Noor. The event and the outrage that followed it
hastened the formation of the country's human rights
commission, Suhakam, which is staffed by
government-appointed commissioners.
There are
about 90 ISA detainees still being held in Kamunting.
Conditions at Kamunting Detention Camp are generally
better than what detainees experience during the initial
60-day intensive interrogation period at undisclosed
locations. During interrogation, former detainees have
complained of sleep deprivation, being subjected to cold
temperatures and mind games, being throttled, beaten or
slapped, and being forced to simulate sex acts, among
other things.
Preventive detention, a relic from
the colonial-era law, initially was used to deal with
communist insurgency, though many members of the left
were also detained in the 1950s and 60s. The government
continued to justify the existence of the ISA (enacted
in 1960), in the aftermath of bloody racial clashes in
1969 by arguing that Malaysia needed to maintain such a
harsh law to deter racial and religious fanatics from
tearing apart the delicate fabric of Malaysian society.
Since then, the ISA has been used against a
motley group of Islamic "deviant" sects, political
opponents, suspected militants, counterfeiters, arms
smugglers and reformasi activists. It also has
created an all-pervasive climate of fear that stifles
legitimate dissent and criticism.
Just when the
specter of ethnic disturbances was subsiding, the
September 11, 2001, attacks provided proponents of the
ISA with what seemed like the perfect justification for
the law: to deal with suspected militants and potential
terrorists. The government, then led by autocratic
premier Mahathir Mohamad, was able to boast that the
Malaysian government had used the ISA against suspected
extremists - many of them little-known individuals -
even before the events of September 11 made it
fashionable.
What the Abu Ghraib prison scandal
has succeeded in doing - though this has not been
highlighted much in the media - is to raise questions
about the wisdom of the whole issue of "preventive
detention": the holding of "security detainees", whether
in war zones or elsewhere, without recourse to due
process.
Just as Malaysian leaders felt
vindicated after September 11 regarding the use of the
ISA and preventive detention in general, they appear to
be on the defensive in the wake of the Abu Ghraib
scandal. Malaysia has not yet ratified the UN Convention
Against Torture nor the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. Like the US, it also has not
signed the Rome Statute, establishing the International
Criminal Court.
The Abu Ghraib prison scandal
and the detention of Nicholas Berg in Iraq for 13 days
before he was taken hostage, and later beheaded, have
exposed how things can go terribly wrong when captives
are denied access to basic legal safeguards such as
independent courts and lawyers.
When the US
Supreme Court starts handing down opinions in the cases
dealing with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
American prisoners held without due process, there will
be considerable interest in the corridors of power in
Southeast Asia. The justification for "preventive
detention" - and its role in creating a climate that
allows captors to abuse and torture prisoners with
impunity - will come under even more intense scrutiny in
the weeks ahead.
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