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Fourth week denied family access: most inhuman application of ISA



DEMOCRATIC ACTION PARTY

Media Statement (3)

by DAP National Chairman Lim Kit Siang in Penang on Tuesday, May 1,  2001:
Ministers should speak up in Cabinet tomorrow to demand that the 10 ISA
detainees are allowed immediate access by family members to ensure that the
ISA is not applied in the most inhuman manner in its 41-year history
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Barisan Nasional Ministers should speak up in Cabinet tomorrow to
demand that the 10 ISA detainees are allowed immediate access by their family
members as seven of them  are entering the fourth week of detention
probably making them ISA detainees longest denied access to family
members.

As a two-time Internal Security Act (ISA)  detainee, I am very
concerned about the safety and treatment of the ten ISA detainees, particularly
the first seven, namely Parti Keadilan Nasional Youth chief Mohd Ezam
Mohd Nor, its vice president Tian Chua; Keadilan supreme council member N.
Gobalakrishnan, Penang Keadilan  Youth  exco member Abdul Ghani Harun,
former JIM Chairman Saari Sungib, Free Anwar Campaign director Raja
Petra Kamaruddin and social activist Hishamuddin Rais.

The "assurance" given by the Deputy Inspector-General of Police, Datuk
Jamil Johari when he responded to the query on the condition of the
detainees: "What more safer place than in police hands?" is no assurance at all.

Anwar Ibrahim and many other ISA detainees who had been victims of
police brutality during the 60-day ISA interrogation period  would have 
dissented and asserted that  that in the circumstances, there is "no more
dangerous place than in police hands".

Although the Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, Datuk Seri
Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had given an assurance that he did not want to
see "another black eye" and that "We  have had enough with  one black eye …We
don't want to see two or three more", the police refusal to allow access to the
detainees after three weeks  of the initial arrest raises alarm about
their safety and treatment short of "another black eye".

Deputy Home Minister, Datuk Chor Chee Heung does not know what he is
talking about when he said that families of the 10 ISA detainees will
be allowed to meet them only after police have completed their
investigations.

Can he tell how many of the 118 politicians, social activists and
academics who were detained under the ISA during  Operation Lalang in 1987 were
still denied access to family members in the fourth week of their  60-day
detention? I will be surprised if there is any such single person.

Ministers should query in Cabinet tomorrow why the ISA is being
administered with unusual harshness and callousness this time, in
utter disregard of the legitimate concerns of family members, Malaysians
and the international civil society about the safety and treatment of the
detainees by the obdurate refusal to allow  access to their family members
against all past police practices.

If Ministers dare not question the use of ISA, the least they should
do is to ensure that it is not applied in the most inhuman manner in the 41-
year history of the ISA by raising the issue of immediate family access
for the 10 ISA detainees at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow.

 Lim Kit Siang