PARLIAMENT An opposition lawmaker has demanded to know whether politicians and dissidents will be nabbed under the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota).

Kuala Terengganu MP Raja Kamarul Bahrin Raja Ahmad Shah of PAS said while the government argued that similar anti-terrorism laws existed in other developed nations, those laws were only used against non-citizens.

"We would like to know if the law would be applicable to Malaysians," he said, recalling the arrests under the now defunct Internal Security Act (ISA).

"The same thing happened with the ISA. We were all told the ISA would only be used against communists, but it was used against politicians as well," he told a press conference in the Parliament lobby today.

He said the terrorism bill has "far reaching implications" and there are strong concerns about its human rights aspects, including the provision for detention without trial.

During former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's tenure, more than 100 people were detained in the biggest ISA swoop, codenamed Ops Lalang, in 1987.

The law was repealed by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak following stiff opposition from among the hardliners in Umno.

Meanwhile, PKR's Kelana Jaya MP Wong Chen is certain that the government has the drafted Bill ready and demanded that MPs be allowed to look at it so that they can prepare their respective debates on the matter.

"They give it to us in the last minute and expect us to debate it," he said.

He demanded that the Bill be made available for MPs by tomorrow, or else the process would be a "travesty of justice."