April 10 marks one year that the six opposition political activists were arrested under Malaysias most draconian Internal Security Act (ISA).

They were accused of attempting to topple the government using militant means. As a result, they were sent to a detention camp for a period of two years which may be renewed indefinitely at the whim of the Home Minister.

One of the men detained is my husband, Mohd Ezam Mohd Nor. Before his arrest, Ezam had been a vocal leader of a growing political movement popularly termed the reformasi movement and the chief of Keadilan Youth.

As an opposition leader, he led many public demonstrations to express dissent and dissatisfaction with the Malaysian governments increasingly authoritarian control on our everyday lives.

Ezams very public and very open struggles were all organised with the firm belief that these rights are enshrined in the Federal Constitution of Malaysia.

Ezam had also disclosed to the public a set of documents that was suppressed by the government for implicating top-ranking Cabinet ministers of high-level corruption. Although these documents were classified as confidential under the oppressive Official Secrets Act, Ezam was acting on the belief that the public had a right to know about corruption by government officials. For this, he is facing criminal charges that could sentence him to a maximum of seven years in jail.

No crime

But that may not even matter since he was arrested under the ISA for dubious national security charges. He was alleged to be planning to topple the government, and the chief of police claims that there is evidence he and his colleagues have gathered arms, weapons, hand grenades and rocket launchers.

Yet, until today none of this so-called evidence has surfaced.

But Ezam, along with Tian Chua, Hishamuddin Rais, Dr Badrulamin Bahron, Saari Sungib and Lokman Noor Adam, are still detained, displaced from society and forcibly separated from their loved ones.

April 10 marks 365 days that these six men have been imprisoned, not for a crime they did not commit, but for no crime at all.

In Malaysia, sending six innocent men to detention does not seem to violate the principles of justice as it does everywhere else in the civilised world.

Many more have been arrested since. 365 days  in whichever and whatever way you choose to look at it, this detention without trial, without an iota of proof, is nothing more than a strong-arm political tactic designed to gag these men, by violating their fundamental human rights.

Act of love

For me, personally, it has been a harrowing one-year experience. I had prepared myself for any eventuality in the light of the governments increasing brutality and desperation, but to have actually gone through 365 days of trying to make sense of this senseless detention has sorrowed me a great deal. The pain still hurts and the hurt lingers.

For me, there are two sides to this tragedy that has befallen our family.

The first side is a personal one. It is the private sorrow and sadness that we endure every single day for the past year because of Ezams absence and the continued restrictions on our visitations. We are allowed to visit him for about an hour a week, and even then with iron grills separating us from him. Our meetings are never private, as guards will always listen in to our conversations.

When Ezam chose this path, I realised the risks and challenges ahead for us. I know that Malaysias false democracy makes life tough for an opposition leader but I believed, and continue to believe that our love will overcome all the difficulties.

One year apart has only made our love and our marriage stronger, and recent world events have re-inforced my belief that Ezams struggle for freedom and justice is worth all the risks in the world.

We embark on this perilous and dangerous journey purely out of our love for this country, out of our strong sense that the foundations of freedom and justice that our country has built itself upon, must never be sacrificed nor taken for granted.

I am proud of Ezam for standing up for his belief and for sacrificing so much of himself to this struggle for freedom and justice.

Ezams arsenal of weapons

I spoke earlier of there being two sides of this tragedy. Apart from the personal tragedy, these detentions also mark a fundamental erosion of Malaysias democratic institution.

This is the greater, and more important, public tragedy.

Ezams arrest proves just how such wide discretionary state powers can be abused for political reasons. International observers have called Ezam and his peers political prisoners.

After the Sept 11 carnage and the subsequent war on terrorism, the Malaysian government had called on the worlds superpowers to understand the root causes of terrorism. One of the causes cited were the injustice and humiliation persistent in the Muslim world.

Well, this humiliation and injustice exist in Malaysia too. The reformasi activists, despite overwhelming popular support and public demonstrations, have chosen to take part in the democratic process of the country.

Ezam had contested in the 1999 general election, and accepted his narrow defeat. Yet he continued his struggle for freedom and justice within the context of a legitimate political movement.

He has never sought to topple the government using militant means. The demonstrations he led were peaceful. He does not have an arsenal of weapons.

His only ammunition is his words and his strong sense of justice. He has not mobilised an army of rebels. His supporters are ordinary Malaysians who yearn for democratic reform in this country through a political process.

Yet the government fails to try to understand the voices he represents and the publics disenchantment with the government.

Freedoms still out of reach

Ezam is the legitimate youth leader of a legitimate political party in Malaysia. His only crime was to have stood up as the voice of the people, to expose the darker side of our government and to express the will of the people.

For all this, he has already spent one year in a detention camp, separated from his wife, his parents, his sisters, his friends and his fellow activists.

This is the ultimate injustice and humiliation a government can impose on its own citizen for having committed no crime. It is as despicable as it is deplorable.

Many years ago, our forebears fought for our independence from colonial rule so that our generation would never have to endure such repressive acts like detention without trial.

And so it is with disappointment that I have to acknowledge that until now those very freedom they had fought for we have not achieved yet. In fact, the road ahead is more dangerous than it has ever been. But all this makes the struggle, and the path Ezam and I have chosen, all the more relevant and important.