Media Statement
Visiting ISA Detainees: SUHAKAM Must Act Urgently
The police have practically refused to entertain SUHAKAM's request to visit the ISA detainees. That is what it means when the police said that SUHAKAM will be permitted to visit the detainees 'at an appropriate time' to be solely determined by the police.
The mass media have not reported critically on this continued abuse of the civil rights of the ISA detainees. For example, The Sun (May 3, 2001) had a bold headline, 'Suhakam gets green light to visit ISA detainees' when the rest of its newsreport was about how meaningless the 'green light' was since the 'date has yet to be specified'.
Let us state the issue bluntly. By delaying SUHAKAM's visit, the police are dragging their feet and defying an Act of Parliament which empowers SUHAKAM to visit places of detention and detainees. The Act does not leave it to the pleaseure of police to determine whether or when SUHAKAM's right can be exercised.
It is completely unreasonable and unacceptable for the police to claim that SUHAKAM still cannot be permitted to visit the detainees 29 days after their arrest.
Let the police answer plainly:
On the one hand, senior police officers have proudly said that there is no safer place for the detainees than to be placed in 'the hands of the police'. On the other hand, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad took the unprecedented step of promising that there will be 'no more black eyes'.
Let us have the truth, the real truth and nothing but the truth:
The longer it takes for an independent body to ascertain the truth to these questions, the stronger will be the public suspicion that the ISA detainees cannot be visited and cannot be produced in court because they have in fact been brutalised.
As everyone knows, that has been the experience of former ISA detainees, whose documented evidence is full of instances of harsh and cruel treatment while they were in the hands of the police.
Is this what the police are trying to conceal while they play games over a non-existent 'green light' and an indeterminate 'appropriate time' for SUHAKAM to visit the detainees?
After Dato Seri Anwar Ibrahim received more than a black eye while being placed in the safe hands of the police, no one takes the assurances of the police or politicians at face value. Nor should SUHAKAM.
SUHAKAM must not accept lame explanations from the police. If the National Human Rights Commision Act and SUHAKAM's mission are to have real meaning, Tan Sri Musa and his fellow Commissioners should firmly assert SUHAKAM's legal rights. They must take their own appropriate steps to visit the ISA detainees. And they should do so urgently and not at the convenience of the police.
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When it comes to SUHAKAM's attempt to visit the ISA detainees, the police, the media and maybe SUHAKAM itself have not been open with the public.
Even the Chairman of SUHAKAM, Tan Sri Musa Hitam, seemed reluctant to admit to the public that 'green light' doesn't mean 'go' because the police will only allow SUHAKAM 'to meet with the detainees at an appropriate time'.