WHEN Jalil (not his real name) saw a donation plea for an underprivileged family via a group chat on Telegram, a free cross-platform messaging app, he decided to donate RM300 to help out.

However, his act of kindness resulted in him being arrested under Malaysia’s Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (Sosma) when it was revealed that the man of the household he donated to had gone to Syria, allegedly to participate in terrorism-related activities.

“Someone said something about helping a poor family whose father and husband had left for Syria. And Jalil thought nothing was wrong if he wanted to donate a small amount of money to help them out,” said lawyer Farida Mohd.

However, Jalil was unaware that the account he deposited money into as well as the recipient of the money were being investigated by police, she said.

Farida said that with the many communication apps available for free, people had to be extra careful with features such as automatic downloads which shared media to devices.

She said users should also be careful with the groups they joined on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram, citing the example of another one of her clients, Sheila (not her real name).

Sheila was a housewife with health problems, and to ease her boredom at home, she had become a member of a Facebook and Telegram group that were linked to Syria.

The mother of one was charged under Section 130 JB of the Penal Code with having materials related to terrorism and was sentenced to two years’ jail.

“Evidence shown in court was the Facebook pages. She has two Facebook accounts and all her photos were tendered in evidence, they were all Syria-related photos.

Most of her Facebook friends are in Syria, so when they talk about Syria, they tag her,” said Farida.

“But she has no plans to go to Syria, she’s just a housewife who has health problems and is financially supported by her husband.

“To say she’s a terrorist or wants to go jihad, it’s absolutely not true, even though yes, she did follow those pages,” she told The Malaysian Insight.

On April 3, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi in a parliamentarian reply said 979 people had been detained under Sosma since its inception five years ago.

“This Act was enacted to provide for special measures with regards to security offences to maintain security and public order, and with regard to other related matters,” he said.

But lawyers and rights groups say the Act has been an ineffective tool to curb terrorism, and has instead landed many innocent people in jail.

Lawyer Syahredzan Johan said Sosma allowed for too much arbitrary power for the authorities.

“The major criticism of Sosma is the 28 days detention without trial. But it is not unique for Malaysia. The Terrorism Act of the UK also has 28 days detention, known as investigative detention,” he said.

“The biggest problem with Sosma is that the detention is not a detention with judicial oversight,” said Syahredzan, referring to the power accorded to police to detain a person without an order from the court, unlike a remand, where a person could only be detained for 24 hours and a magistrate’s remand order must be issued for further detention.

“From what I see in parliament, the government hasn’t really showed how Sosma is effective in dealing with terrorism, and the fact is that it has been used against political dissidents, people like Maria Chin and Khairuddin Abu Hassan,” said Syahredzan.

Maria Chin, head of electoral reform group Bersih 2.0, was detained under Sosma last Nov 18, a day ahead of the Bersih 5 street protests. Chin was released 11 days later.

Khairuddin was arrested under Sosma in October 2015 after filing reports against the scandal-plagued 1MDB. Authorities said his actions amounted to an act of sabotage and a danger to Malaysia’s economy and sovereignty.

In light of the many seemingly non-terrorism related arrests under Sosma, Syahredzan said the government needed to justify the need to extend the law for another five years, following Dewan Rakyat’s approval of the review of the implementation of sub-section 4(5) of the Act last week.

Sub-section 4(5) of Sosma provides power to the police to detain a person suspected of being involved in terrorist activities for a period not exceeding 28 days for investigations.

Until the detention period of the law is reviewed, lawyer Farida has one piece of advice for those actively involved in following discussions and groups on social media.

“Be careful with whom you are in contact with. If you are being added on any WhatsApp, Telegram or WeChat groups, please verify and check who they are first,” she said.

“There is nothing wrong to be curious, but the laws say if you are in possession of materials related to terrorism, you are guilty.

“If a Telegram group is set up by an administrator who is a terrorism suspect and they discuss jihad, you can be considered as supporting terrorism iby taking part in the conversation,” she said.

Inspector-General of Police Khalid Abu Bakar, however, begged to differ.

He said all arrests made by police under Sosma had been done accordingly and based on information gathered.

Khalid said police would always conduct thorough investigations before making arrests.

Simple reasons such as being tagged by friends on Facebook postings on Syria or images that linked to terrorism would not suffice to make an arrest, he said.

“No, not just that kind of link,” Khalid said, adding that there were stringent processes before someone could be arrested under Sosma.

He, however, declined to elaborate what those procedures were. – April 15, 2017.