SHAH ALAM, June 11: The government has been urged to release all Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees and to create a Reconciliation Commission to investigate all misconducts under the ISA by dragging all individuals involved to justice.
Suaram Coordinator, the Abolish ISA Movement (GMI) Secretariat, Shukri Razab said that the Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Seri Dr Zahid Hamidi should not continue past failures of not correcting all errors that have occurred.
He said that this 22 June, it would be exactly one year that the ISA has been abolished and simultaneously with that is the gazetting of the Security Offences Act (Special Measures 2012) or better known as SOSMA.
“SOSMA was enforced when the government had yet to fix mistakes throughout the time the ISA was used,” he said in a media statement.
He explained that a total of 15 detainees are still being held at the Kamunting Detention Camp. From the total number, eight are local residents, three Sri Lankans, three Filipinos and one Indonesian.
In Tawau, Sabah, there are 6 wives still separated from their husbands and 20 young children still separated from their fathers.
“What is more painful is that till today, there is still no clear reason why ISA detainees are still being detained seeing that the act used to detain them has been abolished.
“The last ISA detainee released were prisoners from Tawau, Sabah. By order of detention, they will only be released in January next year after completing their two-year term of detention,” he said.
He said that the former Minister of Home Affairs, Datuk Hishammuddin Hussein, when he led the MOHA did not at all show determination to correct the ISA injustice despite many times receiving demands and protests from the people.
“Therefore, in order to defend the ISA victim’s families, the GMI will hold a visitation to the Kamunting Detention Camp with 5 ISA detainees’ wives from Tawau, Sabah on 15 and 16 June.
“Also present with the delegation were two small children who have never met their fathers because when their fathers were arrested, they were still in the womb.
“This visit is also aimed to expose to the public the farce of the abolition of the ISA which still torments the people even after a year being abolished,” he said.
