Malaysia's Mahathir blasts new U.S. immigration rules

Malaysia's Mahathir blasts new U.S. immigration rules

Agencies, Kuala Lumpur

Declaring "I am not a thief, I am not a terrorist", Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad chided the United States on Tuesday for targeting Muslims under new immigration rules to catch would-be terrorists.

From Tuesday, U.S. immigration officers will register, fingerprint and photograph anyone they feel fits a terrorist profile, including Malaysians. Men from some Islamic countries are most likely to be picked out.

"There is already a general anti-Muslim hysteria. Because of the acts of a few people the whole Muslim world seems to have been labeled," Mahathir told reporters on the sidelines of a bio- technology conference.

"It's their country, so I don't know what we can do about it. Of course I'm upset. I am not a thief, I am not a terrorist," said Mahathir, who was thanked by the White House earlier this year for his help in the U.S.-led war on terror.

Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar branded the new U.S. policy as "discriminatory profiling". He objected to the inclusion of Malaysia on any U.S. immigration watch list.

"We will be expressing our unhappiness and dissatisfaction," Syed Hamid told The Star newspaper, adding: "The U.S. is not only behaving like a superpower, it is acting like a hyperpower."

The U.S. embassy said on Monday that along with citizens of many other countries, some Malaysian citizens were likely to encounter the new procedures upon arrival in the United States.

"The decision of which individuals will be asked to register will be based on information about the current threat of terrorism," the embassy said.

Last month Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi was asked to remove his shoes as part of a routine security check before boarding a flight from Los Angeles to New York, where he was due to address the United Nations.

Abdullah, who will succeed Mahathir when he retires at the end of next year, said he complied.

"All of us had to undergo the same security checks, even the pilot. I was not exempted," Abdullah told reporters on Monday.

Syed Hamid had a similar experience last year, but said he understood the need for greater security.

Though Abdullah tried to downplay the incident, the opposition Democratic Action Party called the demands made of him "disrespectful" and said that Washington owed him an apology.

"It is unimaginable to think that the Malaysian authority would ask Dick Cheney, the vice president of the United States, or any other top government leaders ... to take off their shoes" at an airport, party spokesman Ronnie Liu said.

Badawi said the new rule maligned Malaysia's reputation, and created a negative impression among people unaware of the government's stand against terrorist and militant activities.

Malaysia has been at the forefront of anti-terror efforts in Southeast Asia in the past year, arresting 63 people suspected of belonging to an al-Qaeda-linked network plotting attacks against the U.S. Embassy and other targets in neighboring Singapore.

Malaysian police kept at least two of the al-Qaeda hijackers under surveillance when they passed through Kuala Lumpur almost a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, and shared information with U.S. intelligence officials.

They are also detaining the hijackers' alleged contact in Kuala Lumpur, a U.S.-educated Malaysian called Yazid Sufaat, and have agreed to let Federal Bureau of Investigation officers question him.

The others are accused of supporting Jemaah Islamiah, a group that aims to carve out a pure Islamic state from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Muslim dominated southern Philippines and southern Thailand.

Malaysian and Singaporean police have arrested scores of suspects and detained them without trial, but acknowledged that many remain at large.

Meanwhile, Malaysia's defense minister says that terrorism is not Asia's biggest threat and the terror groups that do exist are small, isolated and under control.

"There is no necessity to panic and overreact, as this threat is very much under control," Malaysian Defense Minister Najib Razak said in a speech on Monday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Tokyo. "The groups are small and are isolated."

Najib, whose comments were carried by the Malaysian news agency Bernama, said that the real challenges for Asia lay in transnational crimes, such as piracy and drug-trafficking. Imbalanced economic growth and environmental degradation are also threats, he said.