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.