Published September 15, 2008

MALAYSIA INSIGHT
Detentions: predicted, and for 'own safety'

One saw it coming, but what is one to make of two others?

By S JAYASANKARAN
KL CORRESPONDENT
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THE events of the past few days in Kuala Lumpur are enough to beggar belief - even among Malaysians.

On Friday, the police arrested three people under the Internal Security Act (ISA), a law introduced in the colonial era that, in theory, permits indefinite detention without trial. The first was Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the enfant terrible of Malaysian cyberspace whose postings on his website have riled up more National Front politicians than any opposition party could ever hope to do.

Raja Petra already faces a slew of legal suits that will probably take him years to defend. And his site was blocked by the government last month. He knew that the ISA came, as it were, with the territory. Two weeks ago, he had almost blithely predicted that his ISA arrest would happen.

But what are we to make of the two other arrests, those of Sin Chew Jit Poh reporter Tan Hoon Cheng and opposition lawmaker Teresa Kok?

Ms Tan was arrested for a 140-word report she filed on remarks made by a Penang politician from the dominant United Malays National Organisation (Umno) during a campaign for a by-election in Permatang Pauh in Penang state. She quoted Ahmad Ismail, an Umno division leader, challenging the antecedents of Malaysia's Chinese community in remarks that later riled up the Chinese component parties in the Front.



Mr Ahmad at first said the remarks had been taken out of context but later compounded his error by lashing out and describing the community in comments that can only be described as reckless. For those statements, he was suspended from Umno for three years and stripped of all party posts.

In its first statement, the Home Ministry said that Ms Tan was arrested for 'playing up sensitive issues'. But what she did report was Mr Ahmad's remarks. In short, she was detained for doing her job. If that is not shooting the messenger, we don't know what is.

After widespread protest - including a storm among the Front and even some Umno lawmakers - Ms Tan was released less than 24 hours after she had been detained. From perceived national security threat, she went to, in Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar's words, being detained 'for her own safety'. In other words, she had been under protective custody for all of 18 hours!

In Ms Kok's case, she is accused of stirring up religious sentiments as she allegedly questioned the volume of the loudspeakers of a mosque in Puchong. The accusations came from Khir Toyo, the former Umno chief minister of Selangor, and were highlighted in Utusan Malaysia, a Malay daily that is owned by the political party.

In January or thereabouts, 189 residents living near a mosque there sent an appeal to the mosque committee and the Umno state assemblyman for the area about the loudspeakers. A copy of the letter was sent to Ms Kok in March after she won the state seat in the general election.

The group has said that Ms Kok did not instigate them and the petition was their own initiative. Now the mosque committee has clarified that Ms Kok was not involved in the petition and had never set foot in the mosque, as was alleged by Mr Khir.

A few days before Ms Kok was arrested, a state legislator from Parti Islam SeMalaysia lodged a police report against Mr Khir for misrepresenting the issue. It will be interesting to see the outcome of that particular investigation.