Malaysia: ISA Detainees Beaten and Humiliated
Internal Security Act Should Be Repealed
Malaysia’s Internal Security Act (ISA), which gives the government unchecked powers to detain individuals for long
periods without charge, is a recipe for abuse, Human Rights Watch said today.
In a new report released today, Human Rights Watch called for the repeal of the 45-year-old ISA, which allows for
detention without trial and bars judicial review of detentions. The report, Detained Without Trial: Abuse of Internal
Security Act Detainees in Malaysia, is based on interviews with family members of current ISA detainees, their lawyers
and handwritten statements of ISA detainees. It documents the physical abuse, ill-treatment and humiliation of more than
25 detainees in Kamunting Detention Center in December 2004. None of these detainees have been charged or tried.
“Those held under the ISA are defined as a group that has virtually no rights, so it is hardly surprising that prison
guards treat them as less than human,” said Brad Adams, executive director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division.
According to eyewitness accounts, ISA detainees were beaten, abused and humiliated in a December 2004 incident when
prison guards, armed with batons, shields and riot gear, mistreated handcuffed detainees. Mohamad Faiq bin Hafidh, who
has been detained since January 2002, described the events of December 8 and 9, 2004, in Kamunting Detention Center. He
wrote:
I was handcuffed . . . and my head was pushed down to waist level. My head was struck with a baton and my eye was hit,
injuring it. When I reached room seven of [the cell block], I was continuously beaten and then forced to strip naked,
ordered to crawl while entering the room and then my buttocks were kicked and that was how I stumbled inside, naked.
No prison officials have been disciplined and the government has not made public the findings of its investigation into
the incident. Human Rights Watch’s requests to visit Kamunting Detention Center and to interview the director of
Kamunting or a government official knowledgeable about the events were denied. Most of the 112 people currently detained
in Malaysia under the ISA are held under allegations of associating with militant Islamist groups, though the government
has expanded its use of the ISA to include individuals accused of counterfeiting and forging documents and has
threatened to use it against practitioners of religious beliefs deemed “deviant” by the government. Some detainees have
been in custody for more than four years.
Human Rights Watch said that ISA detainees have no effective recourse to challenge their detention because the law
prevents the courts from reviewing the merits of ISA detentions. Although the law allows judicial review of the
procedural requirements for detention, Malaysian courts routinely dismiss habeas corpus petitions challenging ISA
detentions.
The Malaysian government admits that it chooses not to prosecute ISA detainees. In July 2005, a cabinet minister, Datuk
Mohamed Nazri, told Human Rights Watch, “They [ISA detainees] have not committed any crime because ISA is preventive.
You cannot, therefore, go to court. The government has information that something will happen. We can’t wait till it
happens. Lives and property will be lost. So before it happens we detain them.”
Human Rights Watch said that it recognizes the obligations of the Malaysian government to protect its population from
terrorist attacks and to bring those responsible for engaging in such attacks to justice. But the Malaysian government
has not yet demonstrated that any of the individuals it has detained have actually engaged in any illegal activity, or
cannot be prosecuted under existing laws.
“Malaysia’s policy amounts to the executive branch presuming the guilt of people without charge or trial,” said Adams.
“The presumption of innocence does not exist for ISA detainees.”
Since 1960, the law has been misused by the ruling United Malay National Organization (UMNO) to silence critics,
resulting in the detention of more than 10,000 people.
Human Rights Watch said that the ISA’s provisions violate fundamental international human rights standards, including
prohibitions on arbitrary detention, guarantees of the right to due process and the right to a prompt and impartial
trial. Malaysia should end its use of ISA detention and rely on its robust criminal law and capable judiciary to tackle
security and other alleged crimes.
“Malaysia aspires to be a leader in the region and a developed country by 2020,” said Adams. “The ISA is not a sign of
leadership or development––it is a sign of repression.”
Human Rights Watch said that long-term critics of the ISA, notably the United States, have been silent since the
September 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. A senior State Department official, when questioned about
the ISA, told Human Rights Watch in December 2003, “With what we’re doing in Guantánamo, we’re on thin ice to push on
this.” A Malaysian cabinet minister, Datuk Mohamed Nazri, confirmed this, telling Human Rights Watch that the U.S. no
longer criticizes Malaysia’s use of the ISA because of U.S. detention practices at Guantánamo Bay.
Human Rights Watch called for the repeal of the ISA, to immediately charge or release individuals detained under the ISA
and to set up an independent commission of inquiry into the allegations of abuse in December 2004.
In May 2004, Human Rights Watch issued a report, In the Name of Security: Counterterrorism and Human Rights Abuses Under
Malaysia’s Internal Security Act, detailing abuses against ISA detainees during the first 60 days of detention.