The 5,000-strong crowd roared, “Mansuhkan ISA!“ – Photo by Anil Netto
On the eve of the Bukit Gantang by-election, Abolish ISA Movement coordinator Syed Ibrahim Syed Noh told a crowd of 5,000 at a Pas event that even though Najib had released 13 ISA detainees, another 27 remained incarcerated in the Kamunting Detention Centre, not too far from the site of the rally.
Just who are these 27, some of whom have been held without trial for more than half a dozen years?
Check out Aliran’s ISA Watch list here.
Syed Ibrahim said it was not enough for an incoming leader like Najib to release some ISA detainees as a some sort of “benevolent” gesture. It may have been good PR, but it was not enough: the ISA itself had to be abolished.
To which the crowd, young and old, female and male, roared back, “Mansuhkan ISA! (Abolish the ISA!)”
We have come a long way since the opposition to the ISA articulated by a few lone dissidents in the 1960s. Over the years since then, the voices in the wilderness have swelled into a tidal wave clamouring for the total abolition of the act. Nothing less will suffice.
[...] the rest here: Who are the remaining ISA detainees? 000-strong-crowd, bukit-gantang, centre, even-though, event-that, had-released, ibrahim, [...]
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ISA a nightmare for many
When police knocking on doors
No prior notice they arrive
Taking the innocents- politicians and activists
Without disclosing the destination
By its law
Prison or lock up without trial
The detainees’ families dismay on faces
For law has no equality
The fractured family units
The social stigma and hardship flow
The wives and children living in solitude environment
For the detainees’ families may not know
Why they are detained? What crimes committed?
The years of sorrowful tears
The government hasn’t come out in the open
Hiding them keeping them prisoners
Forgetting about their families
The social trauma inflicted on them
The sad faces
Tears of sorrow
For the loved ones
The family unit falters
ISA should be canned
Into history where it belongs
Let it be known to all
A law for the scaring government
Afraid of the people
They are the masters of their own destiny
Let ISA go
It has no place in our lives
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