It was a tit-for-tat between Abdul Rahman Dahlan with human rights advocates on Twitterjaya as the federal minister adamantly defended the government's plan to reintroduce detention without trial.

Abdul Rahman, who is Housing and Local Government Minister, had started the ball rolling by first tweeting: "Toughened laws or toughened outlaws. Malaysians must choose".

He said this in reference to an amendment to the Prevention of Crime Act 1959 (PCA) that was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday allowing for detention without.

azlan This, and a series of other tweets in support of PCA quickly invited upset replies from human rights advocates.

"You practice the lowest form of fear-mongering by offering Malaysians a false dichotomy (or) choice," said Nathaniel Tan.

However, Abdul Rahman replied: "I don't need to. Public is in Fear".

He also had a snide reply for another user, Andrew Yong, who had suggested that the police would be better off improving rather than resorting to detention without trial.

"Why don't you be in (the) line of fire then come back to me and tell me how incompetent our police are," he said.

When accused that the revised PCA was merely posturing for the Umno party election, he replied: "Umno or not, we don't play with people's lives".

The engagement, or bickering, went on for a good two hours on Twitter.

"Go ahead with your human rights mantra and inform the people of your objections to #POCA2013 (revised PCA).

"But this government must go ahead (in) protecting the public," declared Abdul Rahman, who is also Kota Belud MP.

Showdown at Parliament

Abdul Rahman's insistence was similarly reflected among his fellow cabinet members, several of whom have defended the planned amendment despite initially being against detention without trial.

NONE While the government appear set on bulldozing the law through Parliament, human rights activists are also set for confrontation as they will take to Parliament to protest against the bill tomorrow.

While the opposition MPs have been unanimous in opposing the bill, the protest is expected to pressure BN MPs from component parties outside Umno.

Both MCA and Gerakan have expressed concern about the bill but it is unclear if how their MPs will vote, especially if the BN whip insists that they toe the government's line.