Global rights group politicising issues in Malaysia, says deputy home minister

Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed questions the lack of attention paid by Human Rights Watchto the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay by the US government. – The Malaysian Insider pic, October 28, 2015.Deputy Home Minister Datuk Nur Jazlan Mohamed has accused watchdog Human Rights Watch (HRW) of politicising allegations that the Malaysian government was clamping down on dissent by using repressive laws to silence critics.

He said the group's report (pic, left) was unfair as Malaysia made several reforms to improve freedom of expression by repealing the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial, as well as the Emergency Ordinance (EO).

"Malaysia has shown commitment by repealing the ISA and the EO. This move has shown Malaysia is fair towards its citizens," he told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

"I think the report has been politicised by HRW. Countries like the United States have Guantanamo Bay, where they detain people for donkey's years but that's alright. They (HRW) have never harped on the issue."

The New York-based watchdog released a report yesterday documenting Putrajaya’s alleged abuse of laws to criminalise peaceful expression and urged Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak to stop treating criticism as a crime.

Titled “Creating a Culture of Fear: The Criminalisation of Peaceful Expression in Malaysia”, the 145-page report accuses Najib of repeatedly breaking his promises to repeal repressive and draconian laws and also reminded him of his pledge to “uphold civil liberties” when he took office in April 2009. 

HRW said the Najib administration, particularly since 2013, had used a range of broad and vaguely worded laws “to harass, investigate and arrest” individuals for peaceful expression.

The level of repression intensified since late last year amid increasing public criticism of Putrajaya’s treatment of former opposition leader Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, now serving jail time for sodomy, and over plans to impose the goods and services tax which was rolled out in April this year.

Although the ISA and EO were replaced with the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (Pota) and Prevention of Crime Act (Poca), Nur Jazlan maintained that the newer laws were not repressive like its predecessors because of certain allocations.

"The difference between Pota and ISA is with ISA, you can only appeal to the minister, only he has the power and there's no right of review.

"Now under Pota, the minister is no longer involved but the board is and the suspects detained can ask the board to review their case for them to be released," he said.

"We had to introduce Poca because of the rising threat of organised and transnational crime. And Poca is also the same system as Pota, there is a board to administer it and the suspects can have their right of review for their release to the board."

The Pulai MP said that other countries had harsher laws, urging HRW to look into abuses of laws in those places as well.

"Not just in Western countries, but also in Singapore. Singapore still has ISA but they haven’t focused on Singapore as much as they focused on Malaysia.

"Even the US ignores them (HRW). Malaysia has not. We have made reforms, what else is not enough? They want us to remove everything, I’m sorry we can’t because of our multi-racial and multi-religious nature of our country," he said, adding that Malaysians knew how to manage their country "better than foreigners".

- TMI