Mahathir attacked for jailing of critics

Mahathir attacked for jailing of critics

KUALA LUMPUR (AP): A regional pro-democracy group accused
Malaysia's Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Monday of clinging
to an "archaic" law to imprison his political opponents.

Representatives of the Alliance for Reform and Democracy in
Asia urged the Malaysian government to abolish the Internal
Security Act, a holdover from the British colonial era that is
currently being used to jail six prominent opposition activists
indefinitely without trial.

"I can't understand how an educated, farsighted leader such as
Dr. Mahathir can still cling to an archaic law," said Tioulong
Saumura, a Cambodian opposition lawmaker.

"Even in Cambodia, our leaders do not bother about trying to
put up a facade of legal procedures," said Saumura, who is the
wife of Sam Rainsy, Cambodia's top opposition leader.

Saumura was speaking to reporters at the end of a five-day
visit to Malaysia to probe the case of 10 opposition officials
whom police arrested in April for allegedly plotting violent
protests to oust Mahathir.

Four of the activists were sent last week to the notorious
Kamunting detention camp in northern Malaysia. Two are in police
custody in unknown locations, while the rest have been released -
two on the orders of a judge and two by police, without
explanation.

Mahathir has defended the move as necessary to safeguard
national security. But opposition leaders call it a clampdown on
dissent against the Malaysian leader, who has led this Southeast
Asian country since 1981.

Delegates from the Asian democracy group, which comprises
individual politicians from 13 countries, said they had requested
a meeting with Mahathir, his deputy and the national police chief
last week to discuss the detentions. They said they received no
response.

Mahathir was visiting Japan for most of the past week, while
Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi traveled to some
Malaysian states outside Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia's largest city.

Sunjaasuren Oyun, a Mongolian member of Parliament, said that
delegates from the pro-democracy organization met with an
official of Malaysia's human rights commission, local opposition
leaders and several wives of the detainees.

Oyun said the group would send letters condemning the
detentions to Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner
for human rights, and the Geneva-based Inter-Parliamentary Union,
whose membership of national parliaments from more than 100
countries works with the United Nations to promote the role of
legislative bodies.

The detainees are leaders of or linked to the opposition
National Justice Party, or Keadilan, headed by the wife of jailed
politician Anwar Ibrahim, who Mahathir fired in 1998.

Anwar was subsequently convicted on corruption and sodomy
charges he says were concocted to prevent him from challenging
Mahathir. Mahathir denies a conspiracy. Anwar is serving prison
terms totaling 15 years.