Media Conference Statement by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP
Secretary-General and MP for Tanjong, Lim Kit Siang, at Anwar Ibrahim's
house at Damansara Heights after calling on Dr. Wan Azizah  Wan Ismail on
Tuesday, September 22, 1998 at 11.30 am

DAP calls on Mahathir to ensure that the wife and lawyers of Anwar are
allowed immediate access to the former Deputy Prime Minister to allay
concerns and fears about his health and wellbeing since his arrest on
Sunday
night
============================================================

I have come with DAP National Vice Chairmen, Dr. Tan Seng Giaw and  Ahmad
Nor, National Organising Secretary Tan Kok Wai and International/NGO
Secretary Teresa Kok to call on Datin Seri Dr. Wan Azizah Wan Ismail to
express our sympathy and concern at the pressures she is undergoing
following the arrest of Anwar Ibrahim on Sunday night.

The Star today reported that Police Bukit Aman Public Relations chief, Supt
Ghazali Mohd Amin said police would investigate a statement made by Azizah
during an interview with CNBC news yesterday that she was afraid of her
husband's life.

There is no doubt that there is general concern about Anwar's health and
wellbeing as Anwar had not been produced in court yesterday morning as
earlier announced by the police on Sunday night to be charged with various
offences, with the police suddenly announcing that Anwar was being detained
under the Internal Security Act.

For three weeks,  a multitude of serious allegations have been hurled at
Anwar  like sexual misconduct, corruption, sedition, murder and high
treason
and it is most shocking that up to now, the government has not been able to
formally prefer these charges against Anwar in court - although the former
Deputy Prime Minister had already been tried and found guilty by the media.

It is even more shocking that after announcing on Sunday night that Anwar
would be produced and charged in court on Monday morning for various
offences like illegal assembly, breaches of the peace and vandalism, the
police had not been able to do so and have decided in mid-stream to detain
him under the Internal Security Act instead.

In fact, this amounted to a form of false arrest of Anwar on Sunday night.
The Internal Security Act was enacted by Parliament in 1960 to deal with
the
militant communist threat to the national security of the country and never
meant to be a convenient catchall law for the Police to detain a person to
give time for the police to decide what particular law to be eventually
used
against him.

It is most disturbing that the ISA is being misused in this unprecedented
way, where Anwar was arrested purportedly under the Penal Code to be
charged
in court the next morning and then in mid-stream, to detain him under the
Internal Security Act, as the ISA was clearly never enacted for this
purpose.

Dr. Munawar Ahmad Aness, for instance, was detained under the Internal
Security Act on Sept. 14 and suddenly five days  later, he was suddenly
brought to court under the most unusual circumstances to make the most
extraordinary confession to plead guilty to an offence of sodomy under
Section 377D of the Penal Code, and jailed for six months.

Even if Munawar is guilty of sodomy under Section 377D of the Penal Code,
when did sodomy become a threat to the national security as to justify his
initial detention under the Internal Security Act?

The unprecedented use of the ISA in the case of Munawar, to arrest him
under
the ISA and then to charge him in court under the Penal Code, and the case
of Anwar, to arrest him under the Penal Code and then to detain him under
the ISA, are clearly a travesty of justice and manifest abuse of the powers
of the Police.

This is why I call on the Police to immediately release Anwar under the ISA
if they are not prepared to charge Anwar in court to give him the
opportunity to clear himself in an public trial.

The widespread public concern at the abuse of power and excessive use of
force has deepened in the past two days at the government's handling of
Anwar's arrest.  For instance, why was it necessary for the special police
elite squad in black balaclavas and armed with machine guns to storm
Anwar's
house and to break down the door to  effect  an entry to arrest the former
Deputy Prime Minister, as if  taking a terrorist hideout, when earlier
Anwar's lawyers have written to the police assuring Anwar's full
co-operation in the event of any arrest?

It is in the light of these injustices, abuses of power and excessive use
of
force that there is widespread worry and apprehension of the health and
well
being of Anwar who had not be produced in court yesterday as earlier
announced by the Police.

I have been twice detained under the Internal Security Act, and I do not
rule out the possibility of a third ISA detention if there is a second
Operation Lalang with mass detention of opposition leaders, NGO activists
and opinion-leaders of dissent in the country in the wake of Anwar's
arrest.

I can therefore talk from personal experience that the first sixty days of
detention under the ISA for interrogation is the worst period, where the
detained person is completely at the mercy of the captors.

During the initial one to two weeks of the 60-day period, the detained
person is completely cut off from the outside world, with no contact with
the family or lawyers, and it is during this period of the ISA detention
that the interrogators would try to break down the detainee, making him to
confess that he was rightly and properly detained under the ISA.  It is
during this period that a detainee can be so broken down that he can even
agree to go on television to make confessions, which he invariably retracts
subsequently either publicly or privately.

It is during this period of 60-day interrogative custody of the ISA that a
detainee is subject to the greatest pressures to break him down.  DAP
leaders and I who have been detained under the ISA have been subject to
such
psychological pressures but we have not been the victim of police brutality
during the first 60 days of ISA detentions.  It is open knowledge, however,
that physical assaults and tortures had taken place during the 60-day
detentions and during Operation Lalang in 1987, some of the detainees who
were physically assaulted and tortured during the 60-day detention had
subsequently made court affidavits of their ordeals - and these constitute
some of the public documents on the iniquities of the ISA.

In the light of this, it is understandable for Azizah, the family, friends
and supporters of Anwar to be concerned about his health and well-being
under the ISA detention.

As this is a subject of national and international attention and concern, I
call on the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Dr. Mahathir Mohamad and the
Inspector-General of Police, Tan Sri Rahim Noor to allow Azizah and Anwar's
lawyers to have immediate access to the former Deputy Prime Minister
beginning today to allay definitively and categorically worries and
apprehensions as to the treatment of Anwar during the ISA detention.

I know this will be most unusual, as ISA detainees are completely cut off
from outside contact especially in the first two weeks of the interrogative
detention, but this is a special case because of the enormous national and
international concerns it had elicited in the past two days, and Mahathir
and the IGP should allow Azizah and the lawyers not only immediate access
to
Anwar today, but daily access as well!
 

- Lim Kit Siang -
 

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