The chairperson of the Parliamentary Special Select Committe to Peruse the Penal Code and Criminal Procedure Code today denied that national security legislation would be or has been abused by the political leadership.

Similar to the Internal Security Act, the government would not use the anti-terror bill for political purposes should it be passed by Parliament, said Mohd Radzi Sheikh Ahmad.

"People are afraid that if they demonstrate, they will be arrested under the ISA. We have not been using the ISA for everything.

"We still have Karpal Singh, We still have Lim Kit Siang (Both of whom are opposition leaders). Sometimes (even) Umno fellows have been arrested under the ISA," he added.

He was speaking to reporters after after being presented with the recommendations of human rights group Suaram on the anti-terror clauses contained in Sections 106A - 106C of the proposed Chapter XIIA entitled "Ancillary investigative Powers in relation to terrorism offences".

'Good thing'

Radzi, who is also minister in the Prime Minister's Department, said even in countries such as the US and UK that previously did not have laws as the ISA, they have passed such laws as it is seen to be "a good thing" and has "worked for us".

"In the US, there was no detention without trial. Now they have it. The British (previously) did not have detention without trial (Now they do). It's a good thing."

"The ISA has worked for us. It is almost similar to British and American terrorism acts", he added.

He also said that Malaysia need not necessarily apply international standards of human rights in its judicial system since the situation in this country was different than, for instance Europe or the United States.

"Everybody wants higher standards. But we must look at our own culture, our own people, not for us to be as the Americans and Europeans," he added..

Wide definition

Earlier, lawyer Edmund Bon had presented to the committee Suaram's position on the anti-terror bill, arguing that the wide ambit under which terror activities were defined left considerable room for exploitation of the law.

"We said the terrorism definition was too wide. It makes almost any criminal offence a terrorist activity. For example, a trade union strike would be a terrorist activity," he later told reporters.

Furthermore, he said, on account of the terms encompassing too wide a definition and the lack of 'safeguards', it was not only liable for abuse but could lead to the encroachment into the liberties of ordinary citizens.

He also questioned the real motivation behind the anti-terror bill since there were sufficient laws contained in Section 121 of the Penal Code to prosecute and imprison those charged with terrorist activity.

"To put it in so broadly when there's already sufficient laws, you know there's something (wrong)," he said.

Bon added that Suaram would prefer appropriate safeguards to be added to such anti-terror legislation, such as the requirement of a warrant for arrest as well as the setting-up of an 'oversight' committee to supervise, for example, government 'interception of communication.'

"If they put (the law through) and they are more specific with their offences with alot of safeguards we have no objections," he said.

International standards

Suaram coordinator Eric Paulsen, in his presentation, stressed on the need to incorporate international standards of human rights into the Malaysian legal system.

"International standards of human rights should be observed by the Malaysian justice sytem because morally and legally Malaysia should adopt international standards of human rights to be included into the justice system," Paulsen later told reporters.

Paulsen also said that he had requested the committee to call for proper research to be made as to the actual rates of crimes relative to previous years, causes of their occurance, and the effectiveness, or otherwise, of higher sentences served on criminals for the purpose of deterrence.

"We gave two actual statistics to the committee on snatch thefts in Selangor which was (recently) released in the Selangor state assembly.For the first six months in 2004, it is not much different than in 2003. There's no dramatic increase," he added.

The same went for the occurance of murders and rapes, he said.

"Suaram does not in any way condone all these acts but we are just saying there has been disproportionate reporting," he explained.

He said there has to be real research into the causes of crimes, whether there has been an actual increase of crime and the link between the increase of penalties to the actual rate of crime.

He added that in other countries, research showed that increased prison sentences did not serve to deter crimes.

Lawyer R Sivarasa, who was also present, said Suaram would like to see the committee's hearing sessions made public as practiced in other Commonwealth countries with a Parliamentary system similar to Malaysia's.

"We would like the select committee to make its hearings public, like special select committees in other Commonwealth countries in order to be more effective and beneficial to the country," he told reporters.