Penang Gerakan legal bureau wants the Malaysian government to abolish the draconian Internal Security Act and replace it with the United Kingdom-type anti-terrorism legislation.

The bureau member and lawyer Clements Ong Tun Heang said unlike ISA, which allows indefinite detention without trial, the UK anti-terrorism law only allowed pre-charge detention.

Under pre-charge detention, he said detainees must be either charged or freed unconditionally after the detention period was over.

He said under ISA, the detainees were not only denied a fair chance of trial to prove their innocence against any charges, they were also at the mercy of the executive.

"The detainees can be detained under the Home Minister's arbitration and the decision cannot be challenged.

"This is against civil liberty and human rights," Clement Ong told Malaysiakini when asked to comment on the 22nd anniversary of the infamous Operation Lalang.

Prior to Ops Lalang, the detainees were given the right to seek judicial review over the ministerial decision to detain them under ISA.

However, after the infamous nationwide ISA crackdown, then Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamed's government repealed the provision allowing the judicial review.

Ong said Gerakan adopted a resolution at the party national delegates' conference last year calling on the federal government to abolish ISA.

However, he said Gerakan would also welcome an explicit review on the draconian act if the Putrajaya administration does not want to repeal it.

"We understand there was a need to have laws to prevent threats to national security and eradicate anti-national elements.

"Thus the party's first choice is for ISA to be repealed and be replaced with the anti-terrorism law implemented in Britain.

"However, if the government decides to review it, Gerakan wants the human rights principles of the UK law to be adopted under the amended ISA," he said.

Either way, he said the provision for indefinite detention without trial shall be repealed and amended to allow detainees to stand for an open trial to defend themselves against any charges.

"Detention without trial infringes a person's liberty," said Ong.

More than 100 people, pre-dominantly politicians and social activists, were rounded up and detained without trial in Kamunting by Dr Mahathir's government under Ops Lalang on Oct 27, 1987.

Ops Lalang is widely regarded as among the darkest chapter in the country's political history since independence.

In the UK, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Subversion Act of 2001 targets only the foreigners.

However, after it was rendered unlawful by the European Court of Human Rights, the UK Government replaced it with the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005.

Under this law, suspects are placed under a control order, which is more like house arrest rather than a detention order.

While ISA detainees are held for a minimum of sixty days in solitary confinement, the limit on holding is 28 days under the UK anti-terrorism laws.

ISA critics, especially former detainees and human rights groups, have always argued that detention without trial diminished and denied citizenry rights by giving the state powers that cannot be reviewed by the courts and corrupting standards central to the administration of justice.

Ong said Gerakan was against this breach of human rights and had always maintained that there must be a check and balance mechanism against arbitral executive powers and decisions.

He also expressed hope that there would be no repeat of Ops Lalang in future.

"Indeed, Gerakan does not want to see anyone arrested under ISA anymore," he said.