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Malaysia – Communists – Ethnic Chinese – Internal Security Act – Freedom of Association – Human Rights

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Malaysia – Communists – Ethnic Chinese – Internal Security Act – Freedom of Association – Human Rights Refugee Review Tribunal AUSTRALIA RRT RESEARCH RESPONSE Research Response Number: MYS17707 Country: Malaysia Date: 16 December 2005 Keywords: Malaysia – Communists – Ethnic Chinese – Internal Security Act – Freedom of association – Human rights This response was prepared by the Country Research Section of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the RRT within time constraints. This response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Questions 1. What is the attitude of the Malaysian authorities to Communism/communists? 2. Do the authorities charge, detain in prison and/or restrain the movement of communists? 3. Could the authorities institute other actions such as ‘instigating violence’, ‘creating public unrest’, and ‘anti-national activities’ to mask action against communists? 4. Is Malaysia branding the human rights movement as communists? 5. What is the ISA Act, (Internal Security Act) in Malaysia? 6. Is it generally accepted that the ethnic Chinese have spread the Communist ideology in Malaysia? 7. What rights of association, freedom of movement, workers’ rights (the right to organize and bargain collectively) and anti-discrimination rights are held by Malaysian citizens? RESPONSE 1. What is the attitude of the Malaysian authorities to Communism/communists? 2. Do the authorities charge, detain in prison and/or restrain the movement of communists? 3. Could the authorities institute other actions such as ‘instigating violence’, creating public unrest’, and ‘anti-national activities’ to mask action against communists? Executive Summary Country information suggests that the Malaysian authorities maintain an antithetical attitude towards any citizens who subscribe, or have subscribed, to the views which motivated the communist insurgency which affected Malaya during the 1948-1960 State of Emergency. Nonetheless, the Malaysian government has made no recent arrests in connection with an anti-communist program. In the decades which followed the Emergency, the Malaysian authorities did arrest hundreds of ethnic Chinese persons on allegations of supporting the communist insurrection, detaining members of a variety of left wing political and organised labour movements under the powers of the 1960 Internal Security Act (ISA). Recent reports, however, suggest that the ISA, though still a facility for arresting persons deemed a threat to state security, has not been employed to detain persons suspected of communist sympathies. (For information on the history and development of the ISA, see: Amnesty International 1999, ‘Malaysia – Human Rights Undermined: Restrictive Laws in a Parliamentary Democracy’, AI Index: ASA 28/06/99, 28 June http://web.amnesty.org/library/pdf/ASA280061999ENGLISH/$File/ASA2800699.pdf – Accessed 14 December 2005 – Attachment 1; for a recent report on persons arrested under the powers of the ISA, see: Human Rights Watch 2005, ‘Detained Without Trial: Abuse of Internal Security Act Detainees in Malaysia’, September http://hrw.org/reports/2005/malaysia0905/malaysia0905.pdf – Accessed 14 December 2005 – Attachment 2.) Hostilities against the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) formally ended in 1989 with the signing of the Haadiyai Peace Accord and a 1999 Amnesty International report states that “[t]he last six remaining communist detainees were reported to have been released in 1995”. Even so, former Communist insurgents who found refuge in Thailand have not been allowed to re-settle in Malaysia, in spite of provisions in the Haadiyai Peace Accord’s agreeing to such re-settlement. Further to this, the Malaysian authorities continue to ban certain communist publications from import into Malaysia and the government prohibits “the Communist Party and affiliated organizations from registering and has blocked the registration of the Socialist Party of Malaysia [or SPM] since 1999”. In spite of this, the SPM continues to operate and to engage in opposition politics; and although its activists are frequent arrested at demonstrations they are rarely detained for any great length of time. Thus, although the political rights of the far left are marginalized through exclusion from the electoral process, there appears to be no active campaign of arrest being waged against persons residing in Malaysia who might be deemed communist sympathizers. (For information on the 1989 Haadiyai Peace Accord and the government’s resistance to the repatriation of former communist insurgents, see: Veeranggan, A. 2005, Suaram website, source: Malaysiakini.com, 4 April http://www.suaram.net/display_article.asp?ID=234 – Accessed 13 December 2005 – Attachment 3; for information on the current ban on communist publications, see: ‘Ministry Closely Monitoring Publications on Terrorisme’ 2005, Organisation of Asia-Pacific News Agencies, source: Bernama, 9 December – Attachment 4; for information on the legal status of the CPM and the SPM, see: US Department of State 2005, Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2004 – Malaysia, 28 February http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2004/41649.htm – Accessed 2 March 2005 – Attachment 5; ‘Malaysia: Police attack residents, demolish homes’ 2005, Green Left Weekly website, 14 September http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2005/642/642p19e.htm – Accessed 14 December 2005 – Attachment 6; for information on the activities of the SPM, see: ‘Defence Request AG to Drop Case!’ 2003, Socialist Party of Malaysia website 2003, Socialist Party of Malaysia website, 29 October http://www.parti- sosialis.org/issues/english/MAY%20DAY/DEFENCE%20REQUEST%20AG%20TO%20D ROP%20CASE.htm – Accessed 15 December 2005 – Attachment 7.) An overview of the source information informing this summary follows below. Source Information The Economist Intelligence Unit’s 15 November 2005 risk assessment observes that the communist insurgency – which defined the shape of Malaysian politics in the decades which followed the Second World War – has “cast a long shadow over Malaysian politics”: After the second world war, many of the ethnic Chinese sympathised with the communist revolution in China. A guerrilla war was started by the largely ethnic-Chinese Malayan Communist Party (MCP), leading to the declaration of a State of Emergency in 1948, which did not officially come to an end until 1960. One of the measures used by the colonial regime to suppress the insurrection was detention without trial, a practice that successive Malaysian governments have continued to employ. The Emergency was to cast a long shadow over Malaysian politics (‘Malaysia risk: Political stability risk’ 2005, Economist Intelligence Unit, 15 November – Attachment 8). A 1999 Amnesty International report details the manner in which the Malaysian government continued to aggressively police allegedly communist organisations in the decades which followed the ending of the 1948-1960 State of Emergency. Arrests in the hundreds were enabled by “the 1960 Internal Security Act (ISA)” which “gave the Executive sweeping powers including the ability to deprive a person of his or her liberty indefinitely without trial solely for ‘preventive’ reasons, and to prohibit meetings, ban publications and exclude books and periodicals”. Amnesty International states that “the number of people arrested and detained under the Act rose from 1119 between 1960 and 1969, to 1713 between 1970 and 1979”; and that “the use of the ISA went beyond suppressing communist insurgency and their supporters and extended to a far broader spectrum of political activity in Malaysia”, with ethnic Chinese members of left-wing political and labour organisations being targeted in particular. Since this time the security focus of the Malaysian authorities has shifted somewhat. “The last six remaining communist detainees were reported to have been released in 1995”, and “[i]n recent years the government has evoked the memory of the 1969 ethnic riots and emphasised the maintenance of inter-communal harmony as a justification for maintaining the extraordinary powers extended by the ISA”. Nonetheless, the arrest of some persons, such as human rights activists, continues to be framed in language reminiscent of anti-communist discourse; former Malaysian prime-minister, Mahathir Mohamad, has, for instance, “accused…NGOs of including ‘leftists’ and ‘traitors’”. Relevant extracts follow in detail: …While the lifting of the 1948-1960 State of Emergency signalled the substantive defeat of the communist insurrection, never-the-less the government, on the basis of Article149 as amended, proceeded to enact the 1960 Internal Security Act (ISA). Rather than being merely an extension of the 1948 Emergency Regulations, regarded as extraordinary measures which automatically lapsed on an annual basis, the ISA was a permanent law, and gave the Executive sweeping powers including the ability to deprive a person of his or her liberty indefinitely without trial solely for ‘preventive’ reasons, and to prohibit meetings, ban publications and exclude books and periodicals. …In the first instance, therefore, the authorities justified the ISA as necessary to effect the ‘mopping up’ of the communist guerrilla threat or, in the mid-1970s, to check a feared resurgence of armed insurgency in the context of communist advances in Indochina. Additionally, for many years the government asserted that the underground tactics of the proscribed Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) and its suspected infiltration of various front
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