Kuala Lumpur, Dec 14 (IANS) The Malaysian government has told foreign missions here that the arrest of Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) leaders under the stringent Internal Security Act (ISA) was to prevent chaos and racial division of society.
On Thursday, prominent ethnic Indian and Hindraf leader P. Uthayakumar and four other associates were detained on sedition charges under the controversial ISA that allows for detention without trial. Uthayakumar had been released on bail Wednesday and rearrested the next day.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said he was informing foreign missions, not seeking their consent and that it did not matter whether they agreed or not to the Malaysian government’s side of the story, the Star newspaper reported Friday.
“I was explaining the factual part. I am not seeking their consent, I answer to the Malaysian public and parliament,” Albar said after meeting over 70 diplomats at his office.
The ISA, enacted in the early 1960s during a national state of emergency to put down a communist insurrection, has been criticised by both international and domestic human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Malaysian Human Rights Commission on grounds that it violates fundamental international standards.
“The ISA was no different from the laws existing in other developed countries, including the US’ Patriot Act,” he said.
The reference to the US was ostensibly in response to Washington’s criticism of the use of the law and the prevention of anti-government rallies by the Malaysian government.
“Some countries like to comment on other countries but do not look what is happening in their own country, how destructive and how difficult they are,” Albar said.
He had earlier this week asked the US to look at its own human rights record in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay prison where many Talibans and their associates from Afghanistan have been held captive.
Albar said his government was reluctant to use the ISA until it was absolutely necessary.
“It is a preventive law. You don’t wait for things to occur and then take action, by then it would be too late,” he said.
Hindraf courted controversy after a protest rally it organised Nov 25 was declared illegal and dispersed.
The Malaysian government also did not permit the holding of a lawyers’ rally on the Human Rights Day. The government has said all rallies without police permission were illegal.
At a public function Thursday, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi had said that a majority of Malaysians wanted a stop to street demonstrations that disrupted normal life and cause disharmony among the country’s multi-racial population.