SYDNEY — Irene Xavier, a labour activist from Malaysia, warned a May 3 public meeting that any Australian “anti-terrorism” laws will go beyond their stated purpose. Xavier, from the Friends of Women Organisation, and Mabel Au, from the Committee for Asian Women, are visiting Australia to publicise the case of Tian Chua and five other activists detained under Malaysia's notorious Internal Security Act (ISA).

Chua was active in the Network of Overseas Students Collectives in Sydney in the 1980s. He was involved in many progressive campaigns while in Australia.

Chua was arrested on April 10, 2001, prior to attending a mass rally.

Xavier has been a labour activist since the 1970s. In April 1987, Xavier was detained without trial under the ISA. The British were the first to bring in repressive laws which were used against the labour movement, Xavier explained.

“But the Malaysian government went further. It brought in laws ostensibly to deal with the communist insurgency in the 1960s. Besides the ISA, which allows indefinite `preventative detention' without trial, it enacted many more laws that attacked civil rights, including laws that govern the press and student activism”.

Xavier recounted her time in detention. In 1987, she was interrogated for 60 days. In a written account of her torture, Xavier has explained that at one stage, she was asked if she would prefer to be beaten with a wooden or a metal stick. She doesn't remember stating a preference, but was beaten on the legs and soles of her feet with a “4x2 wooden beam”.

“I was required to hold my feet one at a time so that [the security officer] could beat the soles. I am not able to tell how long the session lasted because I did not have the luxury of a watch. The beating was accompanied by verbal abuse. At the end of the session, I was told that if I did not cooperate, or if I continued to lie, I would be subjected to worse violence”.

Mabel Au said that on April 10, a year since they were locked up, the six detainees went on hunger strike. On the eighth day, Malaysia's home affairs minister accused them of eating, which provided “some much needed publicity”.

She said pressure has been mounting and the National Human Rights Commission has said it will investigate the cases, but no date has yet been set. Au appealed to solidarity activists here to bring pressure on the Malaysian government.

What happened to Xavier and Chua could happen to any activist in Australia if the federal government's “anti-terrorist” laws are allowed to pass, stressed civil liberties campaigner Tim Anderson. Anderson was jailed for more than seven years on trumped up charges of being a terrorist.

After describing the US-led “war on terrorism” as “the biggest lie of the 21st century”, Anderson said that the proposed anti-terrorism laws were all about “attacking and breaking down solidarity between peoples”.

Anderson said that there were lessons from the Malaysian experience that the movement in Australia should learn. “We are the targets of this new anti-terrorism bill”, he said, pointing to the 40 or so people attending the meeting. “But our resistance can have an impact.”

The proposed Australian law gives ASIO the right to detain people indefinitely, without trial, incommunicado and without access to lawyers.

Paula Abood, a campaigner against racial profiling by police, described the proposed laws as being racially motivated. The laws would be used against Arab and other ethnic communities “to further silence, marginalise and isolate them”, she said.

The meeting was organised by Action in Solidarity with Asia and the Pacific and supported by Sydney Abolish ISA Movement. For more information on the campaign visit < http://www.asia-pacific-A HREF="mailto:action.org"><action.org>, <http://www.suaram.org> or subscribe to <msian-hr-subscribe@yahoogroups.com>. To find out more about Irene Xavier and Tian Chua's stories, and about Malaysia's ISA, visit <http://www.suaram.org/isa/index.htm>.

From Green Left Weekly, May 8, 2002.
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