Do we give in to terror or oppose it?

COMMENT | What do the Better Beer Festival (BBF) and Oktoberfest have in common? Both were cancelled, and terror was eventually cited as a cause for the cancellations. Was it really? So it had nothing to do with giving in to PAS?

The decision to cancel the BBF came one week after PAS central committee member Riduan Mohd Nor lashed-out against the event. He called it a "pesta maksiat" (vice festival) and claimed that Kuala Lumpur would become the "largest vice centre in Asia".

Social commentators have blamed the authorities for lazy policing and using terror as a pitiful excuse. The authorities have given the impression that they are giving in to the terrorists.

One Malay professional said, "The terrorists have won without a fight. Why don't we just cancel every event and tell people to stay at home?"

Azrul Mohd Khalid, the spokesman for Bebas, a secular NGO, believes that the police and the public should not give in to these extremists. "Rather than cancelling all these events, they should bolster security," he said.

To the ordinary person, like you and I, the jihadists, who terrorise nations and kill decent law-abiding citizens around the world, seem to love death more than we love life.

In recent years, the Malaysian authorities have warned their citizens not to take up arms and travel to Syria to fight for the jihadists.

In a report on Oct 8, the Sunday edition of Singapore’s The Straits Times said the issue of radicalisation in Malaysian prisons was laid bare. The growing threat of home-grown jihadis, who had been recruited while they were serving their prison sentence, was exposed. Prisoners and wardens have been radicalised.

Few people know or are concerned, that Malaysia faces a serious problem from radicalisation. The ones who are aware, follow geopolitical updates from the news.

Over the past four years, the authorities have imprisoned at least 332 Malaysians and foreigners, who were supporters and sympathisers of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), and its affiliates. These criminals wanted to join ISIS and travel to Syria. Those who were arrested included policemen, soldiers, and women.

HM Khen is a security consultant, who researches global security issues, intelligence and terrorism. He works closely with the media and law enforcement agencies and tries to raise public awareness about security.

Khen said, "This knowledge should not remain exclusive to a selected few. In this age of information and open communication, we need to embrace openness and transparency to progress as an informed society."

In an interview, Khen told Malaysiakini that most Malaysians were unaware of the threat of radicalisation in prisons and he said, "The Malaysian security culture, in general, is complacent and merely reacts to events and incidents, without any long-lasting impact. In most cases, people aren’t aware of what happens to prisoners after trial. Radicalised individuals and terror suspects form their own community, or network, based on ideology or understanding."

He contends that the response to radicalisation in prison is merely damage control and added, "Inmates jailed for non-terror related offences become acquainted with other inmates and may become radicalised by prisoners who were members of a wider terror network, prior to their detention...