Abolish ISA Movement (GMI) today handed over some 50,000 protest postcards to Pakatan Rakyat MPs in Parliament a bid to put pressure on the government to abolish the draconian law.

The postcards, alongside a protest memorandum, were meant to be given to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi but his absence had prompted them to give it to Pakatan MPs instead.

gmi parliament anti isa event 121108 01 The postcards were handed over to Salahuddin Ayub (PAS-Kubang Kerian), S Sivarasa (PKR-Subang) and Charles Santiago (DAP-Klang).

Some family members of detainees were also present to hand over the postcards.

Each postcard carried signatures of members of the public from various backgrounds calling for the government to abolish the law that provided detention without trial.

"These postcards are not just regular postcards, they are postcards containing the signatures of those with high realisation of the cruelties of the ISA.

"It reflects the real feelings of the people towards this law that is supposedly for protecting the people," GMI president Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh told a press conference.

gmi parliament anti isa event 121108 02 Just as in the past, GMI in the memorandum urged Abdullah to abolish the law as detention without trial violated detainees' basic human rights to be tried in the court of law.

The group have handed dozens of protest memorandums to the government in the past and the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) to report on the violations.

The BN-led government has defended the use of ISA as an effective pre-emptive measure to quell what is often called "national threats."

GMI and other rights groups however feel that the ISA, a law inherited from the British, has been a political tool used by the government to silent its critics.