Lest we forget

Now that the election hype has started to die down, i think that it is imperative that the malaysian public renew its efforts to abolish the ISA and demand the release of all ISA detainees.

On 18th October 2007, High Court judge Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus in a landmark judgment ruled that Abdul Malek Hussin’s ISA arrest and detention for 57 days in 1998 were unlawful and further found that he was tortured while under police custody and awarded him RM2.5 million in damages. The judge found that Malek Hussin had suffered and endured the following events while under police custody:

-arrest and detention were made in bad faith;

-denied access to his lawyer;

-nature of interrogation was clearly for a political purpose and had nothing to do with genuine concern for national security;

-stripped naked in an air-conditioned room and interrogated;

-blindfolded during interrogation;

-physically assaulted up to 60 times; beaten until he was unconscious;

-forced to drink urine and rancid water;

-subjected to sexual abuse;

-threatened with harm against his wife and family;

-threatened not to take legal action or to report on his ordeal.

How does such a primitive, illogical, shameful and draconian law have the right to exist in a "democratic" country such as Malaysia?


In Germany they came first for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Martin Niemoeller (1892-1984)