Counterterrorism and Human Rights Abuses Under Malaysia’s Internal Security Act

III. Human Rights Abuses against ISA Detainees

ISA detainees are subject to a wide range of abuses.  Their procedural rights, including the right to a fair trial, the right to meet with an attorney, and the right to be informed of the reasons for arrest, are all systematically infringed.  But abuse under the ISA is not limited to the denial of procedural rights: detainees are held under difficult conditions that are well below international standards, and are subject to a daily barrage of threats, coercion, intimidation, and, in some cases, physical abuse. 

Arbitrary Arrest and Detention

First they came in and showed their police authorization card, then they showed the detention order under section 73 of the ISA. Immediately after that I was handcuffed. [All they said was] national security, nothing more.59
— former ISA detainee, December 2003

Authorities refused to give family members any reason for the arrests beyond vague references to national security.  The police also did not get a judicially-issued arrest warrant.  Instead, wives of the detainees were often given a standard form stating that the detentions were carried out under section 73 of the ISA, with no specific information about what their husbands had allegedly done.

Family members who were present told Human Rights Watch of a similar pattern when arrests were conducted: arresting officers would arrive late at night in a group, mostly in plain clothes, and then, after making an arrest, search the house for several hours.  Police would then seize virtually anything that would move, including mass circulation news magazines with pictures of Osama bin Laden on the cover, articles by former ISA detainee Saari Sungib, and even an album by Western pop star Cat Stevens, now known as Yusof Islam.60  One detainee had a VCD of the Western music group the Scorpions taken by officials.  The authorities also often took computers from those families that had them, mobile phones, and bank books.

As one detainee’s family member told Human Rights Watch:

I was very surprised when the men came in at 3 a.m.  They brought [name of husband withheld] in handcuffs and three of them came in to ransack the rooms.  They gave me a form that said that your husband is being detained under the ISA.  They told me that he was going to be detained for two weeks for investigation. . . . They searched for an hour or so, and then left at 4:30.  Then at 5:45 a man came back and said that [name of husband withheld] had been taken in. No information, no nothing about the charges at that time.61

Another detainee’s wife had a similar experience:

When they came, I wasn’t in, I was out with my son. I came back at 11:30.  When I came back, my husband was already gone.  They were already in my bedroom when I came in.  My son and I came in and my daughter was crying, saying that daddy was taken by the police.  They questioned me.  They showed me the paper [the standard form given to ISA detainees, which states that the individual is being detained for reasons of national security].62

The police also gave false contact information to the wives of detainees at the time of arrest, making it impossible for wives and family members to follow up with authorities to find out where their relative was being held.  This further exacerbated the sense of confusion and isolation that families felt during and after the arrests.

Torture and Other Mistreatment

Once individuals were taken into custody, they were interrogated by officers from the Special Branch, which, although part of the police bureaucracy, functions as Malaysia’s domestic security service.63  During the political unrest in the 1970s and during Operation Lalang in the 1980s, Special Branch officers were called upon to interrogate, intimidate, and silence political detainees who were perceived as a threat to the Malaysian government.64  Because Special Branch officers are completely free of outside oversight when they interrogate ISA detainees, they have developed a reputation for abusive and coercive tactics.

Until the detainees are given an opportunity to talk about their experiences in a safe environment, free of government monitoring, it will be impossible to know the extent of the physical or psychological abuse that has taken place.  HRW interviews with recently released detainees and family members, and affidavits of current detainees, however, reveal a pattern of physical abuse, including strong indications of torture.  Some detainees allege they have been burned, while others reported being slapped in the face or kicked.  For instance, Mohamad Kadar, a counter-terror detainee taken in by Malaysian authorities in January 2002, reported that Special Branch officers burned his beard, stepped on his head, and threw dirty water on him.65

International law widely prohibits torture and all cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment.  States are obliged to investigate all credible reports of torture. Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights prohibits torture and other forms of mistreatment.  The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) in Article 7 and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (the Convention against Torture) reaffirm this prohibition. Article 10 of the ICCPR also holds that persons in detention must “be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.”  Although Malaysia is not a party to the ICCPR or the Convention against Torture, the ban on torture and other mistreatment is a fundamental principle of customary international law that applies at all times and in all circumstances. 

Torture and other physical abuse

Interrogators often forced detainees to stand for long periods while answering questions, an extremely painful form of mistreatment.  Detainees were sometimes forced to strip before questioning began.  One detainee wrote in his affidavit: “During interrogation, I was asked to stand on one foot for an hour and only wearing my underwear.”66

Almost uniformly, relatives of detainees reported that the detainees were visibly in poor physical condition when they first saw them during their sixty-day detention period.  Some family members reported seeing overt signs of torture, but the visits were heavily monitored, making it virtually impossible for detainees to give family members any real account of their conditions of detention.

One detainee’s wife told Human Rights Watch that her husband had to be helped into the room for his first family visit:

The visit lasted about one hour.  He was pale.  He seemed weak.  He was limping and had to be assisted by the police as he walked into the room.  I asked him what happened and he said that he fell in the bathroom. I was aware that he was being tortured.  Generally he is very strong, but that day he cried.  I’m not sure if he was crying over the injuries or if he was crying over the children.67 

Another detainee’s wife made similar observations about her first visit:

During the second visit, I could see that he was under tremendous pressure.  I could see that he had lost weight.  Also he didn’t walk properly.  He didn’t want to talk.68

Other wives noticed less overt signs of physical abuse, but received indirect comments or a refusal to talk about what happened in the early days of detention, which led them to fear the worst.  As one wife told Human Rights Watch:

I believe that he was assaulted during the sixty day period.  “I had lost hope of seeing you and the children,” he said of his time in sixty-day detention.  If he said something like that, then I assume that his suffering was tremendous.  I think he was kicked and beaten, but he didn’t want to disclose the details because he didn’t want to upset me.69

Another wife of a detainee, on the verge of tears, reported that her husband had refused to talk, but that she had received word that he had in fact been harmed:

When we asked how he was being treated, he said, “Wait until I come out.”  I don’t know what happened to him during his sixty-day detention, but I think that he’s been physically harmed.  Other detainees have said that he was tortured.70

Although most of the wives Human Rights Watch spoke to could only report signs of physical abuse, some of them were told by their husbands that they actually had been abused.  One wife told Human Rights Watch that her husband was physically abused by interrogators trying to force him to confess:

He told me that he was asked to make a confession, or else they would arrest [him]. . . .  He told me he was kicked around and still he didn’t confess.71

For some, seeing a loved one in such bad shape was too much to take:

He was shaking all over.  I saw some mosquito bites on his hands.  He was sweating, and he seemed scared.  His mother started to cry when she saw him.72

Most KeADILan detainees reported being threatened by the authorities but not actually physically abused, either during the initial sixty-day detention period or during their time in Kamunting.73  One reason may be that their cases were much more high-profile, and the level of public scrutiny that the authorities were subject to was much higher.74