Malaysia sends Indonesia teacher to camp

Malaysia sends Indonesia teacher to camp

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): The Malaysian government has ordered an Islamic teacher from Indonesia to be held without trial for two years at a prison camp for alleged involvement in a local militant group, police said on Friday.

The order was the latest step in a crackdown by Malaysian authorities against what they have described as a militant group waging a campaign of murder, robbery and attacks on churches and temples as part of a campaign for a hard-line Islamic state.

Meanwhile, news reports on Friday said that a local university had uncovered an Islamic movement trying to influence its students to start a holy war against Malaysia's secular government.

Malaysia has drawn connections between home-grown militants and extremists in neighboring Indonesia, where four Malaysians are said to have been involved in the bombing of a shopping mall and churches and in sectarian fighting against Christians.

A police spokesman told The Associated Press on customary condition of anonymity that Mohamad Iqbal Rahman was sent to the Kamunting prison camp in northern Malaysia this week to serve a detention order of at least two years under Malaysia's Internal Security Act.

Mohamad, who has permanent resident status in Malaysia, had been in custody since June 30, when he was detained after delivering a religious talk in Shah Alam, near Kuala Lumpur.

Several others suspected militants, including members of the fundamentalist opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic party, are also being held since their arrest under the internal security laws over the past month.

Lawyers are mounting a legal battle to free them, saying the detentions were unconstitutional. The Internal Security Act, created to fight a communist rebellion in the 1950s, allows for indefinite detention without trial.

The Islamic party, the biggest opposition group in the country, accuses Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's government of trying to damage its reputation and derail the party's efforts to roll back a recent ban on outdoor gatherings.

Authorities say the so-called Mujahidin Militant Group is led by the son of the Islamic party's spiritual leader.

Malay Muslims comprise more than 60 percent of Malaysia's 23 million people, and sizable Chinese and Indian minorities make up the rest. The government, which emphasizes national economic development, tries to balance the interests of the groups.

The governing parties retained power in elections in 1999 but lost support, especially to the fundamentalist party.

News service

In a related development, a new independent news service is challenging Malaysia's tight grip on the media by publishing on the Internet and broadcasting via radio stations in Indonesia.

RadiqRadio.com bypasses broadcasting rules because it is transmitted to Malaysia from stations in neighboring Indonesia, which take the stories from the service's Internet site, two founders said on Friday.

The strategy means the station does not need to apply for a broadcasting license from the Malaysian government, which closely controls the electronic and print media.

The country's best-known independent news voice, Malaysiakini.com, also operates without state permission because of a technicality -- Internet sites do not require the publication license that newspapers must renew annually.

"I don't think it would be correct to say that we are cynically exploiting the loophole provided by the Internet," RadiqRadio editorial board member Kean Wong told Reuters.

"It's really an opportunity for Malaysians to be heard, to have a voice. When we report on rural issues you will hear rural people's voices not a journalist pontificating on rural people."

RadiqRadio, which "aired" in June and will launch officially on Sept. 8, is run by the local Center for Investigative Journalism and funded entirely by 68H, an independent Indonesian news service that supplies content to 200 stations, said Wong.