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.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RSS