Alcatraz

Alcatraz or sometimes informally referred to as “rock” is a small island located in the middle of San Francisco Bay, California,USA where it used to be a federal penitentiary to house notable criminals and convicted felons like Al Capone and Alvin Karpis. It became a national recreation area in 1972.

During its 29 years of operation, the penitentiary claimed no prisoners as having ever successfully escaped. 36 prisoners were involved in 14 attempts, two men trying twice; seven were shot and killed, and two drowned.

The Malaysia's version of Alcatraz is largely unknown to the world , it 's referred by the local as political prison as it housed anything except convicted felons where:

a)Ruling elites reign of terror is maintained;

b)Rule of law is trampled and injustice reign;

c)Respect for basic rights and human dignity is denied;

d)Value for personal liberty and humanity within civil society do not exist.

The following is an account of a journalist after having tour of the country infamous political prison.

In May 2004, I was among a group of some 30 journalists allowed into this dreaded detention camp in remote Perak. Kamunting’s high-security prison is where ISA detainees (mainly political dissidents, suspected terrorists and members of cults) who government deems as threat to national security serving imprisonment without trials are often held.

In Malaysia, the terms ISA and Kamunting go together. The detainee often first brought to Bukit Aman headquarters of the federal police for interrogation, and then onwards to Kamunting.

That 2004 visit was the first, and only time since, that journalists were allowed into the camp to see its living conditions. BN had just won big-time in the March 2004 (yes, March 2004, not 2008) general elections and the government was full of confidence and promise. It had won 90 per cent of seats in Parliament - a record.

The visit was hosted by then-Deputy Home Minister Noh Omar who wanted to show journalists that the government had nothing to hide, despite the noise made then by the opposition, rights groups and families of the detainees that horrible things are happening inside.

I shivered as I looked around this Alcatraz, with its trimmed lawns. This was a place where even Clint Eastwood could not escape from. The 114ha camp (about 140 football fields) had double security checks before anyone is allowed in or out. And if one could cut through one set of fence, there is another layer of fence to deal with.

Even if one could find wire cutters, and then be given the time to cut through the fences, there were all the dogs, lights and guards on watch towers to stop any escape attempt. Beyond the fences were just wide stretches of open fields. I don't remember anyone ever escaping from the prison.

According to details published by human rights group in Penang on Sept 19, the big camp has 65 detainees now. Except when they were put in solitary confinement, the detainees I saw were placed in single-storey barracks that they share with others. There was no privacy, really, and there must have been worries among inmates about saying the wrong things to another person that could prolong one's stay in the dreaded camp.

Although detainees are initially given a two-year sentence, the government after seeing recommendations from a review board, could in theory extend the incarceration for a very long time.

According to Penang-based non-governmental right’s organization, the longest prisoners now inside is businessmen Yazid Sufaat and Suhaimi Mokhtar , both have been there for nearly seven years. Both were detained for alleged links to Jemaah Islamiyah terror group since December 2001.

In that camp in 2004, we were taken to meet two groups of people, separately, from two of the barracks. Noh's aides had told the reporters; "You can only watch the deputy minister talk to the detainees, but if you try to talk to any of them, you would be thrown out right away. And please, do not tape any of the conversation." We had to leave our tape recorders and mobile phones at the front counter.

A couple of the detainees cried spontaneously when talking about the plight of their families outside. Many of the inmates then were being detained due to alleged links to the JI, while others were alleged gangsters from the Borneo states.

One of the detainees, seeing the reporters, accused the deputy minister of using the visit to seek political mileage. "Don't use us as political tools and visit us as if we are animals in the zoo," he said. There were no famous faces inside then. And even inside, unlike the journalists, most family members are restricted to a meeting area.

Among those who have been detained under the ISA but since then had been released are opposition veterans Lim Kit Siang, Karpal Singh, Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali, PAS vice president Mohamed Sabu, rights campaigner Irene Xavier, academic Chandra Muzaffar, and Lim Guan Eng. The list is far from comprehensive as it includes lawyers, Chinese educationists, social activists and yet more politicians.

When government ministers go abroad and give speeches to world leaders, they often argue that Malaysians have their own way of dealing with human rights issues. They love to say that culturally Malaysians are different than others, say the American or British. Human rights is a subjective issue that needs subjective interpretation, as the argument goes. Too often they argue that other countries do not have the right to meddle into the affair of another country. USA therefore is constantly warned not to comment on Malaysia politic. Al Gore and Dr Rice are to be scorned for making statement about event in Malaysia respectively; protests by the racist supremacist party supporters against visiting state department officials are common sights in Malaysia. Ironically, these leaders love to rally for the cause of others - from the abolition of apartheid in South Africa or for the plight of the Palestinians or the condemnation of treatment captured terrorists got in Guantanamo Bay. They want the world to see them as champion of human rights and expected every country to operate within international standard but demanded others to overlook the atrocity and injustice Malaysians got from them at home.

Herein lies the racist supremacist's hypocrisy within the context of his own proclaimed ideology of "Islam Hadhari" and the right to talk about human rights. The ISA is used on Malaysians these days as part of a way to ensure that the power, ideology and hegemony is maintained for the rights of the few.




Who's next for ISA?

A poem by Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984)

Several thousand courageous and fair minded Malaysians from all walk of life of different racial background gathered in Kuala Lumpur, capital of Malaysia for a gathering of peaceful candle light vigil to protest against the use of internal security act on civilians, to show their solidarity with detainees, requested an immediate release of all of them so that they can be charged by authority on their alleged crimes in the court of law with fair and speedy trials.

***
Freedom - is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
Expression - Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.
Justice - There are two types of laws -- there are just laws and there are unjust laws... What is the difference between the two? An unjust law is a man-made code that is out of harmony with the moral law.

" Tyranny rejoices and triumphs over all humanity when voices of the free fail to speak for the unfree, the conscientious remain silent to the oppression and injustice around them."

A song named "Why ISA" was composed by a Malaysian ( from remix-lyrics of YMCA) dedicated to all detainees , check it out below:

http://danielykl.com/blog