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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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Monday, 01-Apr-2002 10:36 PM
The Patriot Act is nothing like the ISA
Honest Abe
Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad once again claims that the United
States and he are kindred
souls when it comes to locking up potential terrorists.
According to national news agency Bernama, the PM told the Associated
Press during an interview
that although he was long criticised by the United States for locking up
suspects without trial, America
had adopted similar practices since Sept 11.
Mahathir reportedly said that events since Sept 11 have proven critics
wrong and allowed him to
pre-empt a series of threats by armed militant groups who considered his
moderate government to
not be Islamic enough.
This is another example of the PM trying to say, as usual, that he was
right all the time, and now
even the Americans have come to agree with him and his Internal Security
Act (ISA).
But there are major differences between the ISA and what the Americans
call their "Patriot Act".
Mahathir uses the ISA against his own citizens, his own fellow
Malaysians. The Patriot Act of the
US can only be used against foreigners. It cannot be used against US
citizens.
The one American who has been accused of supporting terrorism, John
Walker Lindh, has been
indicted and is now being tried in a UScourt under regular US laws. He
has full access to attorneys
and all the legal rights and protections of a US citizen. His lawyers
and family have full access to the
press, and their comments are openly reported and not censored.
Malaysian citizens detained under the ISA do not have similar rights.
They have never been charged in
court, and they are denied access to lawyers and a fair and open trial.
As for the non-US citizens being held under the Patriot Act, the US
government is required to file
either immigration or criminal charges against them within seven days.
In other words, they must be
formally charged under regular US laws within seven days. They simply
cannot be locked up for two
years without any charges filed, as happens under the ISA.
A special problem arises, however, when these people are to be deported
on immigration charges.
What if the country they came from does now want them back because they
are suspected terrorists?
The US government believes it cannot simply turn them loose in America,
so it will continue to hold
them.
The law says that non-citizens ordered removed on visa violations can be
indefinitely detained if they
are stateless, their country of origin refuses to accept them, or they
are granted relief from
deportation because they would be tortured if they were returned to
their country of origin. The
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is concerned about this point.
It goes without saying that the Patriot Act is not used to lock up
members of the US Democratic
Party (currently the `opposition' party in the United States, or
newspaper columnists who disagree
with George W Bush.
How does Mahathir justify the use of the ISA against Keadilan
vice-president Tian Chua or
"non-governmental individual" Hishamuddin Rais or Free Anwar Campaign's
Raja Petra Kamarudin?
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