Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak yesterday defended the nation’s strict security laws, saying they are needed to fight terrorism as the Islamic State group warned of revenge over a crackdown on its members.
Najib said the terrorism threat is “very real” and that the laws are crucial to ensure Malaysia is not open to infiltration. Opening a two-day international counter-terrorism conference, he said he would not apologize for taking steps to preserve national security.
“There are no civil liberties under [the Islamic State group] and there are no shields against those who are set on committing acts of terrorism. The best way to uphold civil liberties is to ensure the safety of the nation,” Najib said.
Human rights activists have slammed a law implemented last year that revives detention without trial. Critics also voiced fears that another law approved last month that gives sweeping powers to a council led by the prime minister could be a step toward dictatorship.
Police earlier said the Islamic State group had posted a video that warns of attacks over the arrest of its members.
Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, who heads the Malaysian police counter-terrorism unit, said on the sidelines of the conference that the video carried the Islamic State group logo and featured two Malaysians based in Syria. He said there were previous videos with similar warnings, but this was the first video with a logo of the militant group.
“They threaten to carry out attacks in Malaysia” if their members are not released and more are arrested, said Ayob, adding that police would step up their operations.
On Sunday, police said they had detained seven men suspected of being an Islamic State group cell that was plotting attacks. The seven Malaysians were detained in several states over three days after the Jan. 15 detention of a man police said was planning a suicide attack in Kuala Lumpur.
Police also seized bullets, jihad books and Islamic State group flags and videos.
Malaysia raised its security alert level following the Jan. 14 attacks in Indonesia that left seven people dead.
Earlier at the conference, Australia and Indonesian officials said their governments plan to bolster their anti-terrorism laws.
Australian Minister of Justice Michael Keenan said the Australian Parliament passed anti-terrorism legislation last year to allow agencies to better investigate and prosecute extremists and their supporters.
Keenan said laws planned for this year would allow a control order to be imposed on children as young as 14 years old.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema