Don’t Equate Guantanamo With ISA - Ahmad Shabery

KUALA LUMPUR, — The Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba holding detainees of the United States government cannot be equated with Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA), the Dewan Rakyat was told Wednesday.

Ahmad Shabery Cheek said any assumption to that effect was totally unjust and would only smear the name and image of the Malaysian government.

“Issues related to the violation of human rights at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, which has been condemned by the world, are something unheard of in the context of the ISA here.

“Newsweek (magazine) has reported of the Quran being stamped on, ridiculed and flushed down the toilet (at the camp). Such things are unheard of in the context of the ISA detainees here,” he told the Dewan Rakyat when replying to a supplementary question from Teresa Kok Suh Sim (DAP-Seputeh) who had wanted to know whether the ministry would advise the government to do away with the ISA and remove the “Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp” in Malaysia.

Ahmad Shabery said there have been demands from various human rights groups as well as the United Nations for the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp in Cuba to be closed but no one has asked for the ISA to be abolished.

On the two Malaysians, identified as Mohd Farik Amin and Mohammed Nazir Lep, held under detention by the US authorities in Guantanamo Bay, he said the Malaysian government has asked the US government to ensure that both get a fair trial.

“We will continue to monitor the developments in the matter and follow the trial of the two Malaysians,” he said.

Mohd Farik and Mohammed Nazir are among the 14 foreign nationals who were transferred from secret detention locations of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US government to Guantanamo Bay last September on suspicion of involvement in the Al-Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah movements.