The Internal Secury Act is a legislation act thats enables the executive government of a jurisdiction to preserve the internal security of the nation. In some jurisdictions, it authorizes the government to arrest and detain individuals without trial. Other countries besides Malaysia that have similar legislation are Singapore, Israel, South Africa and the United States of America. The legislation has a noble intention of safeguarding the national securities from terrorists or individuals that can pose danger to the the country. Interestingly is that all this legislation are borned for the need of preventing and defending the country from terrorists. ISA in Malaysia was borned during the height of communist way back in the pre-merdeka period. The Patriot Act introduced in USA was also borned from 9/11 tragedy. It is put in place due to the fear of terrorists. The same goes to Israel and also South Africa. Now, we can see in the newspaper today, Pak Lah and Syed Hamid Albar is starting to use again the ISA as you can read it here. Definitely the government will say that the ISA have to be used because these individuals can be a threat to the nation. These people must be detain under ISA before the country would be in a state of anarchy. In my personal opinion, ISA should only be used if the individual can posed imminent danger such as what a terrorists can posed. An imminent danger to the country and not the imminent danger to the ruling party. Yes, these people who have been detained might probably have breached seditious act, but why use ISA for it? Or are we now under attack by terrorist again?
