The BN government is out to teach the rakyat a lesson for supporting the July 9 rally calling for clean and fair elections.

The Barisan Nasional government has post-July 9 made a conclusion that the belief in communism is still alive and and kicking in Malaysia, hence the justification for retaining the repressive Internal Security Act (ISA) 1960 and the Emergency Ordinance (EO) 1969 laws.

To Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department, Nazri Abdul Aziz, communism is still a threat to national security and that is why six activists who are also members of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) who were caught on claims of campaigning for the Bersih 2.0 July 9 rally best remain behind doors.

“The name of the law is just Emergency Ordinance. The communist (insurgency), even though it has been declared over, the EO is still in effect so that this (communism) will not happen,” he told reporters recently.

Nazri says as long as communism is still around, both the ISA and EO will remain.

And just what is Nazri’s idea of “communism that is alive and kicking?” It is all about the T-shirts depicting Malayan Communist Party leader, Chin Peng, that was in the possession of the six PSM activists’ who are now under EO detention. Nazri, were the T-shirts a good enough reason to warrant the EO?

The six were arrested last month under the Penal Code for allegedly waging war against the Yang di-Pertuan Agong. All six were released and re-arrested on July 2 under the EO.

“This is a security issue, a problem that needs police action. If the police feel that it is affecting (national) security, then it is left to the police (to decide) according to the law or under the EO,” Nazri said.

Clearly, Nazri needs an excuse to make sure the six detainees’ never see the light of the day. This is happening because the BN government is out to teach the rakyat a lesson for supporting the July 9 rally calling for clean and fair elections.

To the ruling BN government under Prime Minister Najib Razak, the shame and humiliation the July 9, 2011 “Walk for Democracy” left it with is being avenged, via the EO and the ISA.

When one of the detainees, Sungai Siput MP, Dr Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, suffered a heart complication and was admitted into the National Heart Institute, the government once again revealed its vendetta against supporters of the rally by refusing Jeyakumar visitors, both relatives and friends, so much so that Jeyakumar’s annoyed wife declared she would hold the government at fault should anything untoward happen to her husband.

Jeyakumar’s order for detention alleged that he was a mover of an illegal organisation called Bersih 2.0 and was causing fear in the public by instigating people to attend a rally on July 9. The other five detainees were not allowed to show similar documents to their lawyers.

Is that what the EO is all about? Detaining people without any concern for their health and welfare? Is the EO all about penalising people for their courage to stand up against injustice?

EO lazy way for police

“The EO is a lazy way for the police to lock up criminals. The police are not properly equipped and trained. It’s a combination of laziness, lack of supervision and shoddy investigations.”

The above remark was made by Women’s Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah who in 2005 sat on the Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysian Police.

Yet another social activist defined the distinction between the use of the ISA and the EO as thus:

“The ISA is a top down – a government minister orders detention of someone seen as a threat to the government whereas the EO is bottom up. The police, having failed to collect evidence to prosecute a criminal suspect, request an EO detention from the minister.”

As it stands, the police finds the EO extremely “useful” in arbitrarily detaining or restricting the movement of suspected gang members and criminals whom it finds hard to bring to justice due to lack of evidence.

This means the police simply locks up hundreds of people for two years or more under the EO, instead of the usual standard operating procedure of arresting suspects and charging them with offenses under the Malaysian criminal law.

In 2005, when the government last made the EO detention figures public, there were 712 EO detainees in the Simpang Renggam detention centre which houses the EO detainees.

Defence lawyer Edmund Bon is worried the government will play dirty by causing delays in the court process and prolong the detention of the six detainees.

Bon said he suspected Attorney-General Abdul Gani Patail would seek a postponement when the High Court sits today to hear the habeas corpus applications from the six detainees.

All eight affidavits filed on behalf of the detainees were ignored by Abdul Gani.

Tampering of the justice system

Provisions under the EO, like the ISA, allow the police to arrest and detain people up to 60 days if the police officer “suspects” that a person has “acted” or “is about to act” in a “manner prejudicial to public order” or that the police have “reason to believe” that a person should be detained if “necessary for the suppression of violence” or for “the prevention of crimes”.

The arresting police officer reports the circumstances of the arrest to the Inspector-General of Police. There is no need to obtain a detention order from the magistrate, hence creating a situation where the appropriateness of detention is not reviewed by a judge.

The 60 days can be prolonged to two years if the home minister is “satisfied” that the detention is “necessary to maintain public order and prevent crimes of violence”.

Making it all the worse is the fact that a 1989 amendment, the doing of former prime minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad, eliminated judicial review of the merits of EO detentions.

Tragic indeed how the government of the day conveniently abused its executive powers before tampering with the judiciary. The EO which was created in 1969 after the May 13 riots as a temporary measure to halt the spread of violence has today become an ammunition for the BN government and Umno, the Malay-rights party, to get rid of voices that dare stand up against it.

The worry for the families of the six detainees is that while they were detained under the EO, all six are now being placed under the draconian ISA, based on the treatment they received.

PSM secretary-general S Arutchelvan on July 7, 2011, said the six detainees were told that they would be called by their numbers and not names. When questioned, they were told that was the ISA arrest procedure.

“Besides that, they are being kept in solitary confinement.”

“Though the family members were notified upon the arrest that they will be kept in lock-ups at (federal police headquarters in) Bukit Aman, it now appears that they are being kept at a secret location. Most probably they are being kept in the Police Remand Centre (PRC) in Batu 5, Jalan Ipoh, KL,” said Arutchelvan.

“All these clearly show that the six had been subjected to the ISA-style arrest and not the EO. Under the EO arrest, detainees are not blindfolded and are kept in district police lock-ups,” Arutchelvan was quoted as saying.

Nazri’s gibberish claim to retain EO

Nazri’s recent justification on why the EO is still relevant makes no sense. So much so that a reader in an e-mail response to FMT left Nazri with some “food for thought”.

The reader pointed out that a BN state assemblyman in Perak has in his office a picture of second prime minister Abdul Razak Hussein and Mao Zedong, a Chinese communist revolutionary, shaking hands.

Will the rakyat now see the police scampering to arrest the said BN assemblyman for his communist belief? Or will the cops be in two minds considering the man in the picture, Abdul Razak, is the father of current premier Najib?

Some years ago the government banned the memoir “Chin Peng: My Side of History” by communist leader Chin Peng. But then, as the reader aptly points out, literature on communist members like Chin Peng, Rashid Maidin, Abdullah CD and Shamsiah Fakeh are openly available at bookstores.

Will these bookstore owners be detained under EO, for “acting” in a “manner prejudicial to public order” and made to languish behind bars for an indefinite period of time?

If not, why then were the six PSM activists detained just because they were in possession of T-shirts depicting Chin Peng, a determined anti-colonialist? Was that “basis” in reality an excuse the cops needed to silent voices that the “powers that be” deem threatening to their survival?

Whatever happened to the promise given by the nation’s Father of Independence and first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman who defined the purpose of ISA as to “be used solely against the communists… My Cabinet colleagues and I gave a solemn promise to Parliament and the nation that the immense power given to the government under the ISA would never be used to stifle legitimate opposition and silence lawful dissent”.

Or for that matter the assurance given by the third premier, Hussein Onn, who said his administration had enforced the ISA to curb communist activity and not to repress “lawful political opposition and democratic citizen activity”.