Malaysia’s government must fully explain its plan to overhaul oppressive security laws before it can be declared a victory for human rights, opposition figures and activists said yesterday.
Rights groups hailed Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s announcement on Thursday that he would repeal an unpopular law allowing preventive detention as a potential watershed, validating decades of campaigning by civil liberties advocates.
Amnesty International called it a “significant step forward for human rights” in the Muslim-majority country, while the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia praised the “historic and bold decision.”
Photo: EPA
However, with memories still fresh of a crackdown on a July rally for electoral reform, government opponents demanded clarity on two new laws the premier said would replace the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) and other legislation.
They expressed particular concern that new laws would retain some police preventive detention powers, albeit for shorter periods and subject to more court oversight.
“I welcome the repeal of the ISA, which has been long fought for by the people and opposed by [the government],” opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim said in a Twitter posting while on a trip abroad
“However, we must be cautious over whether [the new laws] will actually guarantee freedom, or just replace the present law,” added Anwar, a former deputy premier and past ISA detainee.
Najib, who is to call fresh elections by 2013, made the announcement in an apparent bid to shore up his chances against a potent opposition alliance.
He has faced mounting questions over the July rally response, rising racial tensions in the multi-ethnic nation and an increasingly pessimistic economic outlook.
There is also growing dissatisfaction with preferential policies favoring the dominant Malay ethnic group, who make up half the polyglot nation’s people.
Political analyst Shaharuddin Badaruddin expressed doubt that the legal move would lure back voters, who in 2008 deserted the long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition that Najib now heads, handing the opposition historic gains.
“The impact of repealing the ISA and security laws really does not have as much resonance compared to boosting the salaries of civil servants or removing taxes,” he said.
Opposition figures and activists said that repealing the ISA will have only a symbolic effect if a range of other oppressive laws are allowed to stay on the books.
“The devil is in the details. We have to look at what is the final substance of the two new laws,” former president of the Malaysian Bar Ragunath Kesavan said.
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