Journalists speak out against ISA
K Kabilan, a journalist of six years, said, "ISA is a repressive tool of a repressive regime. To remove the tool, the regime itself must undergo changes first."
Jacqueline Ann Surin, also a journalist of six years, said it is her responsibility as a journalist to speak out against abuse of power and denial of human rights.
"The ISA is clearly inhumane because it allows for detention without trial, and any authority which uses it declares to the rest of the world that it is willing to abuse, and has abused, power," she said.
"Such an authority obviously does not want to be accountable for the power that it wields, and that is a danger to the democracy we live in."
Masjaliza Hamzah, a journalist of eight years, said, "While the ISA and its application in Malaysia may not be as cruel as some of the human rights violation in other parts of the world, it has been just as effective in stifling voices.
"In going without food, I am joining many others who are speaking against the ISA and expressing their solidarity with those who have been detained and are still in detention."
Chuah Siew Eng, with seven years in the business, maintained that the ISA has outlived its original purpose and has now instead become a favourite weapon of the present authorities to clamp down on dissent.
"If the people won't get rid of the abusers, then they have to get rid of the weapon. While the people may want to maintain the present government, they cannot deny the fact that the ISA has been abused nor that it is inherently evil for it presumes guilt and gives the accused no chance to defend himself."
She added, "I don't hope for an immediate abolishment, but a beginning to an end. The Domestic Violence Act took years of thought, drafting and lobbying before it came into existence.
"However, it needs to be said and it needs to be said by all citizens, including journalists. To remain silent is to legitimise the law. We should not give the authorities the excuse that there isn't enough protest against the ISA to justify its abolishment.
"Some 25,000 lives have been ravaged by this Act. Let the recent 10 ISA detainees be the last," she stressed.
Draconian law
Susan Loone, on the beat for 10 months, said, "The ISA can only be abolished when the government is abolished. Because it is only the government and the politicians who created the ISA - through an Act of Parliament - and need it.
"As long as you have governments, you'll have the ISA. Perhaps, it has a different name but the torture, the detention without trial and the implications are the same. And governments will always find ways to justify this draconian law."
Veteran journalist Kee Thuan Chye who has 24 years experience is not going hungry for the day. Nevertheless, he wanted his voice on record.
"I want my children to grow up in a land where they can speak out without fear. I do not want them to cultivate the habit of their parents and grandparents - the habit of turning around to see who's listening in when they have something 'sensitive' or 'controversial' to say.
"Nothing is really that 'sensitive'. Only the ISA deems it so," he said.
At least three journalists around the world have also pledged their support, from Peru, the Netherlands and Zambia.
Aliran condemns
Yesterday, the ISA came into play again when the government used it against three opposition party members and a reformist.
Keadilan vice-president Tian Chua, its Youth chief Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor and supreme council member Saari Sungib were sent with social activist Hishamuddin Rais to a detention centre to undergo two years of detention without trial for allegedly trying to topple the government via militant means and mass street demonstrations.
Human rights group Aliran today joined the chorus of condemnation from the opposition parties at the detention orders against the four.
"Despite alleging all kinds of threats against national security to justify the arrests that began on April 10, and despite interrogating the detainees for nearly 60 days, the police evidently have nothing that they can prove or defend in an open court," it said in a statement.
Aliran said while there has been no visible support for the ISA arrests, there was plenty of opposition from political parties, non-governmental organisations, Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) and other citizens.
"The clearest rejection of ISA came from Justice Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus who declared in the Shah Alam High Court on May 30 that the detention of N Gobalakrishnan and Abdul Ghani Haroon was unlawful, the police had acted in bad faith, and Parliament should review the ISA," it said.
Aliran further censured Home Affairs Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who approved the detention orders, as being "no different from Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad when it comes to authoritarian rule".
