Arrested After Dispersing Restaurant patrons among those detained after foiled attempt to submit anti-ISA memorandum By Anil Netto
11 a.m., Saturday,
It was a strangely subdued, passive protest. There were no chants of reformasi, no banners, no placards, no political party or NGO emblems, except for Abolish ISA badges and a couple of keADILan flags, one of them stuck on a tree trunk by the roadside.
The crowd of some 500 onlookers, largely Malay, stood stoically outside shops facing the roadblock, a couple of kilometres away from the Kamunting Detention Camp.
They stood there, some of them curious, others sullen-faced, as they stared at a phalanx of riot police in front of four red police trucks blocking the road leading to the Camp.
Representatives of the Abolish the Internal Security Act (ISA) Movement were trying to head for the camp — which holds some 80 ISA detainees — to hand over a protest memorandum..
In the memorandum, the activists expressed concern over the health of the detainees - a few of whom were said to be suffering from migraine, blood in the urine, and high blood pressure.
Police officers using loudhailers then ordered them to disperse. Burly plainclothes police personnel, each with a thin pink cloth strip pinned to his shirt (presumably for identification purposes), then moved in to clear the area, including the corridors of the shops. A couple of Chinese female shop attendants pulled down the shutters to their shop.
Occasionally riot police jogged forward, prompting spectators to scatter. Several riot police pursued those fleeing and entered the compound of the Kamunting Mosque. They scoured the area for several minutes, looking for anyone who might have sought refuge there. Some of the onlookers moved into the shops while others entered restaurants.
In all, 48 activists, onlookers and others nearby, including a journalist and two cameramen, were arrested. They were released later that day though it is still not clear if they will be formally charged. Among those arrested were several prominent Parti Sosialis and keADILan activists.
At no time did the crowd create any trouble. They were entirely peaceful. Standing on the roadsides and outside the shops, they were not obstructing traffic. They were not bad for business either. Coffee-shops and restaurants nearby were packed with customers, many of whom had dispersed after police warnings.
The crowd this time, however, was far smaller than last October’s crowd of about 2,000 for a similar anti-ISA protest. Then, protesters were allowed to gather outside the camp’s perimeter to read out statements before dispersing peacefully. Anti-ISA protests are usually held on or around Oct 27, to mark the day in 1987 when police launched Operation Lallang, a nationwide crackdown against dissent that led to the arrests of more than a hundred dissidents.
Many saw the arrests during the Saturday protest as an attempt to curb public displays of dissent. Earlier, on July 15, police had arrested 41 people taking part in a road convoy to Kamunting to express solidarity with the detainees and their families. “The main reason is to frighten the public and to prevent them from showing their opposition to a draconian law,” said Jeyakumar Devaraj, one of those arrested on Saturday.
Jeyakumar said he had written twice to the district’s police chief on behalf of the Abolish ISA Movement, asking for a meeting to explore how they could cooperate with the police while exercising their right to freedom of assembly and expression. “The decision to arrest people and to block the whole gathering is a political action and an abuse of police power,” he added.
Indeed, there is growing concern that governments are using the ‘war against terrorism’ in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks in the United States to justify crackdowns on domestic dissent. “All over the world, as an immediate aftermath of the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, human rights and civil liberties are in retreat and authoritarianism is on the ascendance,” said six former ISA detainees from the DAP in a statement.
They warned that the authorities in Malaysia would be emboldened by an increasingly authoritarian atmosphere in the international scene to crack down even harder against legitimate dissent and the democratic opposition.
In April, the ISA was used against prominent reformasi activists especially from Keadilan. More arrests followed from August, this time targeting alleged members of a so-called Malaysian Mujahideen Group (KMM), many of them local leaders or supporters of the opposition PAS.
Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad came up with a candid quote: “To bring these terrorists through normal court procedures would have entailed adducing proper evidence which would have been difficult to obtain.”
It looks like the ‘war against terrorism’ has set back the struggle for human rights in Malaysia several years. It will require stronger commitment and perseverance if our nation is ever to get rid of the scourge of the ISA.
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Police swooped down on the lingering crowd and started making arrests. Three police trucks arrived one after another. One of these trucks stopped outside a Muslim restaurant. Police asked many of the patrons, most of them Muslim males attired in loose gowns and skullcaps or turbans, for their identity cards. Their names were then called out and they were herded into the waiting truck. As the truck sped away, the detainees inside sang religious hymns with gusto.