Malaysia arrests 40 protesters

Malaysia arrests 40 protesters

MALAYSIA: Police arrested at least 40 people, including a journalist and two cameramen, near a northern Malaysian prison camp on Saturday during an opposition rally to protest a security law that allows for indefinite detention without trial.

The arrests were made after more than 300 activists -- mostly from the fundamentalist Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party and the National Justice Party -- waved banners and chanted slogans near the camp in Kamunting town, 250 kilometers north of Kuala Lumpur.

No violence was reported at the rally, which was watched by scores of riot police and lasted less than 30 minutes outside a row of small shops about three kilometers from the camp. The crowd shouted "Reformasi!" -- the opposition's battle-cry for democratic reform.

The rally was part of the opposition's ongoing campaign against the use of the Internal Security Act, a decades-old law that was designed to quell a communist insurgency which ended years ago. -- AP