FORMER Operasi Lalang detainees want Dr Mahathir Mohamad to be held accountable for their detention without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA) 30 years ago, with one calling for a royal commission of inquiry to probe into all cases of abuse under the now-repealed law.

Suaram adviser Dr Kua Kia Soong called for an RCI and said the former prime minister, who yesterday accepted blame but maintained the detentions were not his decision, must be held accountable for the police actions.

“By this admission, Dr Mahathir must now be held accountable for the actions of the police who executed the tortures and so must the former IGP, who has valiantly claimed that he was the one responsible for the detentions. 

“Let me also remind them that Ops Lalang was not the only period when ISA detainees were tortured, so there should really be a royal commission of inquiry into all the cases of torture carried out under the various administrations using the ISA,” said Kua, who has been among the most vocal in demanding an apology from Dr Mahathir over Ops Lalang.

In a statement today, Kua detailed the use of the now-repealed ISA at other periods in Malaysia’s history. Kua said there is enough evidence for the National Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) to commence an inquiry.

“We demand a full inquiry that will not let off any torturer who has inflicted pain on any detainee. At the same time, we call upon all former political detainees to lodge a report of their detention with Suhakam so that our nation can know the full facts of this ISA reign of terror.”

Dr Mahathir has consistently denied responsibility for Ops Lalang and said it was carried out at the insistence of the then inspector-general of police Hanif Omar and Special Branch chief Abdul Rahim Noor.

Ops Lalang was launched on October 27, 1987, and saw 106 people comprising activists, politicians, academics, students and preachers detained under the ISA. The British-era law allowed preventive detention without trial to be extended every two years, after the first 60 days.

Kua, who was detained from 1987 to 1989, said he could “vouch for the mental torture” that detainees went through during the first 60 days.

“Such conditions were far worse than those accorded convicted criminals. Most oppressive of all is the terror of lawlessness under the hands of torturers who were not accountable to the public.”

Another ex-detainee, Parti Sosialis Malaysia chairman Dr Nasir Hashim called Dr Mahathir’s expression of regret a “political diversion”.

“He is definitely responsible, as he was directly involved. I don’t agree (that the detentions were not his decision). It was a national-level matter. It was about politics (not security) and he had the power to free us.

“It might be fair that he says he regrets is, but the point is, he was directly involved. So, he can’t blame the police,” said Nasir, who was held for 15 months after the first 60 days.

Lim Chin Chin, who was detained for seven months for allegedly being a Marxist, said she was “glad” to hear Dr Mahathir accepting blame for the mass arrests.

“When he comes into power again, I hope he will do away with all the preventive detention laws in existence.

“I think it is in his power to do so,” she said of the former prime minister, who now heads the opposition coalition Pakatan Harapan.

The 61-year-old co-founder of the Women’s Development Collective and All Women’s Action Society was accused of rallying women to overthrow the government.

Another detainee Irene Xavier, 66, said Dr Mahathir should also take responsibility for weakening the independence of public institutions, such as the judiciary, during his term as prime minister.

“We accept that he takes responsibility for Ops Lalang.

“(But) he also needs to face up to the fact that because he concentrated power in his hand as a PM, many public institutions in the country are no longer independent, skewed towards the governing parties.

“He took away independence of the judiciary, Election Commission, Anti-Corruption Agency… That was serious. It gave corrupt politicians a lot of room to escape,” said the women’s rights activist who was detained for 355 days, during which she said she was beaten.

Shah Alam MP Khalid Samad, who was also detained in Ops Lalang and is now working with Dr Mahathir in the opposition, welcomed his admission.

“I commend Dr Mahathir for accepting the blame even though former IGP Hanif Omar has said it wasn’t Dr Mahathir who was responsible,” said Khalid, who was held for two years at Kamunting.

Kua, in his statement listing the use of torture under various ISA cases at other times, said these included:

• Findings by Amnesty International and an international panel of lawyers who visited Malaysia in 1982 on the deplorable conditions in prison cells and conditions in solitary confinement;
• An observation by the Malaysian Bar in 1982 in a memorandum to the government that solitary confinement detainees were liable to suffer “serious psychiatric consequences”;
• The torture of former Sarawak assemblyman Abdul Rahman Hamzah which was revealed in the March 1989 sitting of Parliament;
• Assault on former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim in 1998 while in police custody; and,
• Torture recounted in affidavits, police reports and statutory declarations by Mior Abdul Razak Yahya, Abdul Malik Hussein and Dr Munawar Anees. – November 2, 2017.