The green light has been given - the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) can now visit the special remand centres (PRCs) in Kuala Lumpur, whose locations are kept secret by the police.

Suhakam commissioner Prof Hamdan Adnan announced today that the police have verbally given the positive reply to the request of Suhakam to visit these PRCs.

He said Suhakam will make the request in writing to the police soon and the actual date of visiting PRCs will only be known after that.

"The law says that we have the right to visit PRCs. We are arranging that and we will see what can we do from there."

He added that Suhakam will protest if it finds any detainees being mistreated in such remand centres.

PRCs are holding areas used to interrogate those arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA) during the initial 60 days of detention and their locations are unknown even to detainees.

The ISA allows for detention without trial and the internal security minister is empowered to extend the detention period indefinitely.

Hamdan reiterated Suhakam's stance that those placed under detention should be brought before the court.

"National security is important but human rights is very important too. This is to show that we respect the dignity of individuals and that we are civilised," he said.

'Turn over' and 'brain-wash'

Earlier, Hamdan received a memorandum from the Abolish ISA Movement (AIM) on the abuse of several ISA detainees with alleged links to terror organisation Jemaah Islamiah

The eight ISA detainees - Azman Khan Mahmood, Jaafar Saldin, Mat Sah Satray, Mazlan Ishak, Shakom Shahid, Shamsuddin bin Sulaiman, Syed Ali Syed Abdullah and Yusrin Haiti - were transferred from the Kamunting Detention Centre to a PRC in Kuala Lumpur under Section 18 of the ISA.

Section 18 of the ISA gives the power to the home minister to detain any ISA detainees at any locations the minister deems fit.

According to the memorandum, the eight detainees were kept at a PRC from June 11-17 this year, adding that the transfer was an attempt by the police to 'turn over' and 'brain-wash' the detainees.

On June 12, the eight detainees had their detention order extended another two years at the PRC.

The memorandum was read out by AIM chairperson Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh. Also present were three wives of the ISA detainees and human rights organisation Suaram's coordinators Yap Swee Seng and Chang Lih Kang.

Syed Ibrahim said the transfer of the detainees was to instill fear in them so that they would refrain from protesting against the extension of their detention order.