The mother of a Karachi student detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) has appealed for the release of her son from incommunicado detention, as she feared the conditions that he is being held under.

Rohaimah Salleh, the mother of 19-year-old Mohd Radzi Mohd Razak, said it is unnecessary for the police to detain her son under the ISA as he would cooperate fully with the authorities.

"He is just a child and he does not know anything. We will give full cooperation. I don't mind if they get someone to follow him around 24 hours a day but they shouldn't hold him like this. I am worried about what they could be doing to him," she said when contacted today.

Responding to allegations by the authorities that Mohd Radzi and his fellow students were being trained as the next tier of leaders for regional militant organisation Jemaah Islamiah (JI), Rohaimah dismissed the claims as "lies and fabrications".

While she acknowledged that her son may have been acquainted with the brother of JI leader Hambali, Gun Rustam Gunawan, she said this was not out of the ordinary as they attended the same Karachi institution.

"He is not the only one who knows (Hambali's brother). There are so many students from other countries who have come into contact with him at the school. Sometimes, the students meet up so it is nothing unusual," she asserted.

Rohaimah said her attempts to learn more details of Mohd Radzi's detention had been unsuccessful as officers at the Bukit Aman police headquarters merely told her to wait for further instructions.

The 13 students were arrested on Monday upon arriving in Kuala Lumpur from Karachi where they were detained by Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency on suspicion of involvement in militant activities.

Last month, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told a press conference in Kuala Lumpur that 11 of the students had been cleared to return to Malaysia following completion of investigations there.

However, Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday defended the detention of the students on grounds that the government had to investigate their links to JI.

No legal representation

Meanwhile, more civil society groups have urged the government to release the students from ISA detention and to carry out investigations using other legal provisions.

National Human Rights Organisation (Hakam) said in a statement today that there are existing provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code which allow for more than adequate time for the police to conduct their investigations.

Hakam secretary-general Elizabeth Wong said the authorities' decision to detain the students under the ISA only amounts to a denial of their fundamental right to legal representation in an open trial.

"We are of the opinion that the mere allegation of being members of JI in this current global context may have already stigmatised these students, thus impeding their right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in a fair and public trial," she said.

According to her, the government should explain why it is necessary to detain the students further when a special police team had already been dispatched earlier to Karachi to question them.

"It is necessary to ask why the prime minister and the police now contend that they require more time to complete their investigations. It is also necessary for the authorities to disclose whether the students were already under Malaysian police custody in the weeks following their release in Pakistan."

Urgent appeal

Meanwhile, the Malaysia Youth and Democratic Movement (Dema) has criticised the government's move to arrest the students as one that is "unscrupulous" and "immoral".

Dema secretary Chang Lih Kang said the government has not presented any evidence for its assertion that the students were cadres of JI.

"If the accused are real threats to national security, we urge the government to provide credible evidence in court," he said.

The arrest of the students on Monday also prompted another human rights organisation, Amnesty International, to launch an urgent action for its members worldwide to write letters of concern to Prime Minister and Home Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi.

Among others, AI called on its members to address the arrest and incommunicado detention of the students, their treatment while in custody and their lack of access to legal assistance.