Arqam man assails KL's detentions

Arqam man assails KL's detentions

BANGKOK (AFP): A senior Al Arqam official based in Thailand has assailed Malaysia's detention without trial of sect members and disputed the purported confession of sect leader Ashaari Muhamad.

Al Arqam Supreme Council member Ustaz Abu Daulah said in a letter published in The Nation daily yesterday that Ashaari's reported confession was "another (Malaysian) government propaganda ploy to deceive the public."

Ashaari and other sect members, held under Malaysia's tough Internal Security Act (ISA), "were denied fundamental rights and treated worse than criminals by the Malaysian police," the writer said.

Responding to a speech and news conference in Bangkok last week by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, he recalled that Anwar had vowed to fight against the ISA after he was detained under the law for nearly two years as a social activist in the 1970s.

"Now he is in the government and all has been forgotten. Worse still, from a fervent Islamic intellectual fighting against social injustice he has now turned to inventing lies and half- truths to shut others up, by using the most dreadful ISA," the writer held.