US 'war on terrorism' weakens Malaysia rights campaign

KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 10: The US ''war on terrorism'', now entering its sixth year, has weakened efforts to end Malaysia's colonial-era powers to detain national security suspects indefinitely without trial.

Lawyers and activists say Washington, once among the loudest voices for abolition of the Internal Security Act (ISA) on human rights grounds, has increasingly retreated behind its own wall of harsh security measures invoked after September 11.

They say the abuse scandal at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, revulsion over the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, and President George W Bush's acknowledgement that the CIA secretly held al Qaeda operatives overseas, away from judicial oversight, have compounded the problem.

''The change in the US stance was really important,'' said lawyer Edmund Bon, who represents dozens of detainees held at the secretive Kamunting prison under the Internal Security Act.

Some call Kamunting ''Malaysia's Gitmo'', a reference to the offshore Us camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where prisoners are held indefinitely with few explicit rights. The name is particularly damning since Malaysia has called publicly for Guantanamo to be closed down.

''After 9/11, the US took the foot off the pedal, a lot of momentum was lost. With international pressure reduced, we have to go back to the drawing board,'' said Bon.

Nazri Abdul Aziz, minister in the prime minister's department, said the two countries saw eye-to-eye on security.

''They are less critical of us now because they, I think, probably have found it's necessary to fight terrorism and different countries have their own ways of doing it,'' Nazri said.

Malaysia's Bar Council, seeking abolition of the Internal Security Act, says the U.S. shift left them out in the cold.

''When they did not have a problem, the US was very vocal against the ISA,'' said Krishna Dallumah, an expert at the Bar Council. All that changed with Sept. 11, Dallumah said.

ABOUT 100 HELD

According to Human Rights Watch, Kamunting holds about 100 ISA prisoners, around 60 on suspicion of ties to radical Islamic groups. Hundreds more are held elsewhere under other emergency laws. None has been formally charged and all are subject to regular renewal of their detention orders at the discretion of Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is both Prime Minister and Minister for Internal Security. Some have been imprisoned for years.

In the eyes of local campaigners, Washington's global ''war on terrorism'' weakened a drive they said was moving forward, albeit slowly. There have been tentative signs the government is prepared to give some ground, and Malaysia's cautious judiciary has even made some inroads against state power over detainees.

In a few cases, judges have ordered the release of ISA detainees, although the Bar Council's Dallumah said these were generally on technicalities and not based on the merits of the detention orders.

''The courts still feel that is for the government to decide.'' A royal commission last year blamed rights abuses in large part on ''the existence of a range of 'preventive' legislation that places restrictions on fundamental liberties''. The panel proposed a total of 125 recommendations to improve the work of the police, including limits to the Internal Security Act.

Experts and some lawmakers are exploring changes to existing laws, and there has been some progress in getting detainees legal counsel and alerting their families to their whereabouts.

Proponents of reform, however, say such preventive laws -- dating to counter-insurgency against the communists during British colonial times -- should be scrapped and suspects charged with actual crimes that can be adjudicated in court.

To date, the commission's recommendations have not been acted upon and a series of internal deadlines for reform have lapsed.

''Basically, nothing has come of it,'' said rights lawyer Bon.

REUTERS