The DAP has called for a national referendum to decide whether the Internal Security Act (ISA) should be abolished and the public should have the final say in this matter.

NONE Party national vice-president M Kula Segaran said that the BN, being political servants of the public must allow them to make the final decision instead always having a superior attitude and assuming that it knows what is best for society.

"We have seen many a time, whereby BN had blundered in making hasty decisions on important national issues without consulting and getting the proper feedback from the grassroots of society.

There has been a flip-flop changes in many issues as the government unilaterally make decisions according to their emotional mood and not on rational thinking," Kula said.

He cited as an example the edeucation policy which he described seeing " a roller -coaster ride" and the BN " is lost as to how to bring about a consistent policy that will meet modern times and needs of the challenging competitive world."

‘Not for state security, but for self'

Returning to the issue of the ISA, Kula said the government is not taking the Act as part of the security for the nation but as a protection mechanism for BN political interests.

He was commenting on Home Minister Hishammuddin Hussein's NONE comments saying that the government has no intention of abolishing the Act but would incorporate into it a system of checks and balances. The minister also wanted to correct the perception that the ISA had been used as a political tool.

To this,Kula said "This shows that the government is not prepared to accede to public demand that the ISA be abolished. Secondly he is not prepared to admit the fact that ISA has been used as a political tool."

"Was he (Hishammuddin) not aware that in 2008, cabinet minister Shabery Chik had said that during the term of office of Tun Mahathir Mohammad, the ISA was used to detain many people because they were a threat to national security when in actual fact they were a threat to his leadership," Kula said.

The ISA 1960 was originally enacted to combat the remnants of he communist insurgency but though the communists have laid down their arms, it has continued to exist in Malaysia

and now is used to detain political dissidents, he added.