KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Malaysia's government appeared at the weekend to back off from expected reforms of tough internal security laws, saying no changes to the legislation were currently on the table.
Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said he was not reviewing the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial and that it was not one of his priorities before leaving office next year.
"At the moment, I'm not... reviewing the ISA," he told reporters on Saturday. "The government is using the ISA now and we have not discussed any changes to it."
The government says the act is a vital tool to fight terrorism, but rights groups say the law has been used to silence government critics.
On Friday, police detained human rights activist Cheng Lee Whee under the act after she participated in a demonstration opposing a squatter-colony demolition in southern Johor state. She was released over the weekend.
The government also last week declared Indian rights group Hindraf an illegal organisation after detaining five of its leaders under the act following anti-discrimination protests in the capital last year.
Many had expected Abdullah to reform the laws after the appointment of Zaid Ibrahim, a human rights lawyer, as the de facto law minister.
However, Zaid resigned last month after proposing an overhaul of the security law following the arrest of two journalists and a politician.
Abdullah has been forced to announce he will quit in March next year after dismal results in this year's national elections that handed the opposition unprecedented gains including a third of parliamentary seats.
The ISA, parts of which are a relic of the British colonial era when it was used to fight a communist insurgency, allows for renewable two-year periods of detention without trial.
