New 'tactics' used against ISA detainees' wives
Malaysiakini
Sep 22, 2006
Beh Lih Yi

The authorities are apparently employing a new tactic to stop families of detainees held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) from participating in campaigns against the draconian act, which allows detention without trial.

Norlaila Othman, wife of one of the detainees, claimed she had been advised by a member of a recently-released ISA detainee’s family to stop getting involved in the lobby group, Abolish ISA Movement (AIM).

“The family told me a police officer in Bukit Aman (federal police headquarters) had asked the ex-detainee to inform other detainees’ wives to refrain themselves from attending AIM activities should we want our husband released earlier,” she said when contacted today.

Norlaila’s husband, Mat Sah Mohd Satray, was held under the ISA since 2002 over terror-related charges. The couple has a 13-year-old son.

“We have faced police harassment continuously and this has been directed against my family, such as monitoring our movement or calling us repeatedly. This is the first time that they tried to use other detainees’ families to pressure us,” she said. 

Apart from that, Norlaila said her husband had related the same message to her during a visit last month to the Kamunting detention camp in Taiping, Perak, where he is being held.

“My husband told me the detainees have to sing Negaraku (the national anthem) every morning and were asked to advise their wives not to attend any activity organised by AIM in order to secure early release,” she added.

Memo to Suhakam

Norlaila’s concern has been submitted to the Human Rights Commission, or Sukaham, in a memorandum on Wednesday.

AIM is a 83-member coalition comprising civil society groups, opposition parties, trade unions and other non-governmental organisations. The families of ISA detainees also formed a detainees’ families support group under the coalition.

AIM secretary Chang Lih Kang lambasted this new form of harassment against the detainees’ families.

“The police Special Branch should stop harassing the ISA detainees’ wives,” the activist said when contacted.

He reiterated the Internal Security Ministry should either release or charge the detainees in an open court.

Special pre-release course

Meanwhile, Norlaila in her Suhakam memorandum also claimed a few batches of detainees were forced to undergo a ‘special pre-release course’ between May and September, held at the police remand centre in Bukit Aman police.

According to her, the detainees are told that should they be freed, they are not to deny any terrorist charges against them, not to challenge the detention in court, and that the detainees must repent and practise Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s Islam Hadhari concept.

Attempts to obtain comments from the Bukit Aman office have been unsuccessful.

More than 100 people, including scores of suspected Muslim militants, are being held under the notorious ISA.

Last week, Abdullah was slammed for practising “double standards” after he called for free and open trial for two Malaysians who are being held in the United States military jail in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay while ISA detainees are being detained here without trial. 

Malaysia has lashed out at the US for the detention of two Malaysian al-Qaeda suspects, saying that Washington had broken its own laws in its war on terror.