KUALA LUMPUR: Human rights lawyers criticised the government yesterday over its plans to include certain provisions from the now-defunct Internal Security Act (ISA) in the new anti-terrorism law. This comes on the heels of their disappointment that Putrajaya did not keep its promise to repeal the Sedition Act. 

N Surendran, the PKR MP for Padang Serai, said the people were led to believe by the government that Malaysia would be rid of laws on preventive detention with the repeal of the ISA.

“It is utterly disgraceful for [Home Minister Datuk Seri] Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar and other BN leaders to constantly use the Paris attacks as an excuse to pass draconian new laws threatening the civil liberties of all Malaysians,” the lawyer said in a statement yesterday.

Wan Junaidi told The Malaysian Insider yesterday that Putrajaya is considering incorporating some of the provisions in the ISA into a new act, in the wake of threats of terrorism such as that posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis).

“The government has promised that the ISA will not be restored, but perhaps after it is vetted, (the new law) will have provisions similar to the ISA,” he said. Wan Junaidi said the new law would be divided into  sections, which would include punishment and preventive measures.

Using the recent terrorist attacks in Paris as an example, the minister said the incident serves as a lesson  and a reminder to the government of the need to be careful in anticipating such violence. “We cannot wait for someone to bomb a building before we arrest him. No one in Malaysia wants that to happen ...  Sometimes, we go on and on about democracy, but we never ask ourselves how much of a democracy we want,” he said.

“Existing laws such as the Sosma 2012 [Security Offences (Special Measures) Act] are more than adequate to deal with any potential terrorist threat,” Surendran said of the proposed new law. Under Sosma, authorities are allowed to detain anyone for 28 days without being brought to court, which Surendran noted was greater than any comparable legislation in countries such as the United States, Australia or the United Kingdom. “Ironically, [these] Western countries face  greater danger from terrorism than Malaysia,” he said.

Rights group Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) said reviving an ISA-like law is the second “about-face” from Najib after he reneged on his repeated promises to abolish the Sedition Act.

“While not doubting the serious dangers of extremism and militancy, the solution will not be found in reviving an oppressive and antiquated law akin to the ISA that provides for wide and arbitrary powers to detain suspects indefinitely without recourse to due process and a fair trial,” said LFL executive director Eric Paulsen in a statement. Instead, Putrajaya should look into the root causes of extremist and militant acts. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 27, 2015.