No escape from this Malaysian Alcatraz

A Singaporean's insight to the Kamunting detention camp
A blog in straitstimes.com.

SEPT 25 - In May 2004, I was among a group of some 30 journalists allowed into the dreaded Kamunting detention camp in remote Perak. Kamunting is a high-security prison where Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees - who can be imprisoned without trial - are often held.

In Malaysia, the terms ISA and Kamunting go together. If you are arrested under the ISA, you are often first brought to Bukit Aman (ironically, Hill of Peace in Malay) headquarters of the federal police, or the Police Remand Centre for interrogation, and then onwards to Kamunting.

The latest to hit the news with his transfer from Bukit Aman to Kamunting is blogger Raja Petra Kamaruddin. He sadly joined the five leaders of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) who have been detained there since December last year.

That 2004 visit was the first, and only time since, that journalists were allowed into the camp to see its living conditions. It was part of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi's liberalisation policy - he had just won big-time in the March 2004 (yes, March 2004, not 2008) general elections and the government was full of confidence and promise. It had won 90 per cent of seats in Parliament - a record.
The visit was hosted by then-Deputy Home Minister Noh Omar who wanted to show journalists that the government had nothing to hide, despite the noise made then by the opposition, rights groups and families of the detainees that horrible things are happening inside.

I shivered as I looked around this Malaysian Alcatraz, with its trimmed lawns. This was a place where Clint Eastwood could escape from. The 114ha camp (about 140 football fields) had double security checks before anyone is allowed in or out. And if one could cut through one set of fence, there is another layer of fence to deal with.

Even if one could find wire cutters, and then be given the time to cut through the fences, there were all the dogs, lights and guards on watch towers to stop any escape attempt. Beyond the fences were just wide stretches of open fields. I don't remember anyone ever escaping from the prison.

The place reminded me of the song Hotel California - you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. Unless the government wants you to.

According to details published by rights group Aliran in Penang on Sept 19, the big camp has 64 detainees now. Raja Petra makes it 65. Except when they were put in solitary confinement, the detainees I saw were placed in single-storey barracks that they share with others.

There was no privacy, really, and there must have been worries among inmates about saying the wrong things to another person that could prolong one's stay in the dreaded camp.

You see, although people like Raja Petra have been given a two-year sentence, the government after seeing recommendations from a review board, could in theory extend the incarceration for a very long time.

According to Penang-based rights non-governmental organisation Aliran, the longest prisoners now inside Kamunting - businessmen Yazid Sufaat and Suhaimi Mokhtar - have been there for nearly seven years.

Both were detained for alleged links to the Jemaah Islamiyah terror group since December 2001. In that camp in 2004, we were taken to meet two groups of people, separately, from two of the barracks. Noh's aides had told the reporters - you are only observers.

"You can watch the deputy minister talk to the detainees, but if you try to talk to any of them, you would be thrown out right away. And please, do not tape any of the conversation." We had to leave our tape recorders and mobile phones at the front counter.

Credit had to be given to Datuk Noh on that day, because although he was civil to the detainees, he was bombarded with questions on why they were still inside, their worries about their families, and their many claims of innocence.

A couple of the detainees cried spontaneously when talking about the plight of their families outside. Many of the inmates then were being detained due to alleged links to the JI, while others were alleged gangsters from the Borneo states.

One of the detainees, seeing the reporters, accused the deputy minister of using the visit to "seek political mileage".

"Don't use us as political tools and visit us as if we are animals in the zoo," he said.

There were no famous faces inside then, except for Nik Abduh Nik Aziz, a son of the Parti Islam SeMalaysia spiritual leader, Nik Aziz Nik Mat. He was held due to alleged links with JI, and did not say anything at all. Nik Abduh has since been released.

As for Raja Petra, he is not the most famous person to have passed through those infamous gates. Those gates are the only ones that the public can see on a drive there, unless he or she is allowed inside to see a family member. And even inside, unlike the journalists in 2004, most family members are restricted to a meeting area.

In Malaysia, being jailed under the ISA has, rightly or wrongly, come be to taken as a badge of honour. It is as if the time spent under detention shows that 'My struggle was so intense that to stop me, the government had to put me behind bars without trial'.

Among those who have been detained under the ISA are opposition veterans Lim Kit Siang and Karpal Singh, Parti Keadilan Rakyat chiefs Anwar Ibrahim and Azmin Ali, PAS vice president Mohamed Sabu, former deputy minister Ibrahim Ali, current defacto Islamic Affairs Minister Zahim Hamidi, rights campaigner Irene Xavier and academic Chandra Muzaffar.

The list is far from comprehensive as it includes lawyers, Chinese educationists, social activists and yet more politicians. A group of ex-inmates are fighting to get the ISA laws totally dropped. They are known by their Malay acronym GAM, or Gerakan Mansukan ISA (Abolish ISA Movement).

After the arrests of Raja Petra, opposition MP Teresa Kok and Sin Chew Daily journalist Tan Hoon Cheng, rights groups and NGOs have again banded together to the ISA repealed. It is not clear what will happen next, but most of those released from the camp were not cowed, but became fierce fighters against the security laws. - Reme Ahmad

Heroes in blue: Nuing sacrificed his life to save comrades

By : FADHAL A. GHANI

Imbok Jimbon showing her husband’s Seri Pahlawan Gagah Perkasa award.

True friendship and protecting the nation and his comrades were Constable Nuing Saling's priorities in life, so much so that he died doing just that, even though he was on leave at the time. FADHAL A. GHANI speaks to his widow.

IMBOK Jimbon was enjoying having her husband at home. (RIGHT: Constable Nuing Saling and the NST report on April 7, 1975.)

She was six months pregnant with their third child and her husband, Constable Nuing Saling, was into his second week of leave from the police field force (PFF -- now General Operations Force).

Then Nuing told her he would be joining his best friend Superintendent Johnny Mustapa on an operation in the jungles near Sibu.

Imbok was worried. A feeling of dread came over her. "I had a feeling that this would be my husband's most dangerous mission. I reminded him that he was on leave and we were due to go back to my hometown, Kampung Sungai Banyok, in Sibu, in two days' time," said Imbok recently.

But Nuing was insistent. He told her that protecting the nation was his duty and a very important one at that.

Plus, he added, he and Johnny had an agreement that they would help each other out in all missions.

The night before Nuing left, Imbok had a dream that a well-dressed policeman who identified himself as Sergeant Intai visited her and presented her with a gold stick.

It would take her more than a year to understand the meaning of her dream, when Nuing was posthumously awarded the country's highest award for valour.

"It was only when he was awarded the Seri Pahlawan Gagah Perkasa (SP) did I understand my dream. He was destined to be a hero of the nation," said Imbok.

Nuing was awarded the SP on June 2, 1976, more than a year after the operation where he, Johnny and one other member of the 15th Battalion of the PFF lost their lives.

The trio of Sarawakians were among 16 PFF members who were on patrol when they were involved in a firefight with a group of 14 communist terrorists at 10pm on April 5, 1975.

When that battle ended, with no one killed, the policemen continued their patrol. They had another battle with communists at 3am the following day.

In both battles, none of the policemen were wounded, but blood trails indicated that several of the communists had at least been wounded.

At 6.30am, however, the patrol stumbled onto a terrorist fort near Sungai Setabau. They were in an open field when they were ambushed by the communists in their fort.

As the shooting continued, Johnny and most of his men managed to get to cover, but Nuing and Constable Abang Masri were unable to do so. All they could do was lie as flat as possible and use the ground for what little cover it afforded from the communists barely 100m away.

Seeing his best friend and another member of his group pinned down, Johnny ordered his men to attack the communists' fort.

Nuing and Abang joined in as the group began to fire and move toward the fort.

Abang, however, was stopped not far from where he had been pinned down, killed by several bullets.

His teammates later said Nuing became enraged by Abang's death, running toward the enemy while firing his weapon.

A shotgun blast hit him in the face, causing him to fall, but even that did not stop Nuing. With blood streaming out of his wounds, he continued to attack, killing and wounding several communists.

But just as he was about to reach the fort, he was hit several more times and killed instantly.

The battle continued for several more minutes, during which Johnny was also killed. The remainder of the patrol, however, eventually seized the enemy fort, although the communists who were not dead managed to escape.

The three cops were buried with full police honours in Kuching.

At the time of his death, Nuing was 32. He had a daughter aged 8 and a son aged 3. Three months' later, Imbok gave birth to the couple's second daughter.

Born in Sungai Bungam, Mata Igan, Sarawak in 1943, Nuing joined the force on Feb 5, 1963.

Massive churches are rising in Muslim Indonesia

The Wall Street Journal Asia
JAKARTA, Sept 5 — Indonesia's sprinkling of small churches have periodically been raided, burned down or bombed by angry mobs. It would seem to be a good place for Christians to keep a low profile.

Instead, some wealthy Christian leaders in the predominantly Muslim nation have embarked on a bold and possibly provocative strategy: building megachurches as an assertion of their faith.

At least four multimillion-dollar churches that can seat thousands of people — patterned on the evangelical colossi of the US — are nearing completion around Jakarta, the capital, and others are cropping up elsewhere.

The striking edifices are one way Christians — who make up about 8 per cent of Indonesia's population of 230 million — are dealing with what some say is a rise in anti-Christian sentiment in Asia. They are an emblem of how the church here, financed by prominent businesspeople, is determined to make its presence known after a decade of persecution.

During the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, Indonesia's ethnic Chinese, who make up a large portion of Jakarta's Christians, were targeted in race riots. Denied permits by the government to build places of worship, congregations have met instead behind closed doors in malls and five-star hotels. Today, the government still blocks many requests to construct churches, fearing a backlash from extremist Muslim groups, and mobs still regularly attack churches.

But Christians say the decision to allow the massive churches signals a step forward and a reinforcement of Indonesia's secular constitution.

Indonesia's Religious Affairs Ministry declined to make the official who is qualified to respond on church permits available for an interview. In general, Jakarta prefers not to comment on the sensitive subject of religion.

The government appears to be allowing the megachurches at a time when organised Islamic terrorism has diminished as a threat to the nation.

Terrorists linked to al Qaeda, who bombed a string of Jakarta churches on Christmas Eve in 2000 and carried out the Bali nightclub attacks in 2002, have been greatly weakened by arrests under the leadership of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and haven't carried out a major assault on Western or Christian targets for three years. The megachurches, which have their own security, may yet offer a target to determined terrorists, but times have changed.

The lull in organised terror has, in turn, emboldened Jakarta's elite churches to put up the gleaming structures. Thanks to Indonesia's booming economy, rich ethnic-Chinese businesspeople can fund the projects.

In Kemayoran, a business district of high-rise offices near the city centre, the Reformed Millennium Cathedral is set to open officially on Sept 20. It will seat 8,000 and house a seminary, a university and a museum of Chinese porcelain.

Preacher Stephen Tong, a 69-year-old Chinese-born Indonesian, founded the Indonesian Reformed Evangelical Church in 1989 and says it took 16 years to persuade the central government to issue a permit to build the new church. In that time, hundreds of churches have been burned down by hardliners across Indonesia, he estimates.

"I've built a bigger one" than all the destroyed churches combined, says Tong, who used to hold his church's meetings in a hotel. "I want it to be an image that Indonesia still has freedom of religion."

Tong acknowledges persistent problems, and Christians complain that in day-to-day life, Yudhoyono, who faces re-election next year, has generally been slow to defend religious minorities. The police often turn a blind eye to Islamist violence against churches without security in poor parts of Jakarta and rural Indonesia.

In July, hundreds of Christian theology students were driven from their campus in east Jakarta after a group reportedly angered by the singing of hymns, considered an evangelical activity, attacked them with Molotov cocktails and spears, injuring scores of them. Police have taken no action. "We should remain faithful to the constitution," Tong says.

The population of Christians in Asia and the Middle East grew to 350 million in 2005, or 9 per cent, from about 100 million in 1970, or 5 per cent of the total population, according to a 2006 study on Asian Christianity by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, a project of the Pew Research Centre.

Many Indian states have passed laws making it harder to change religions. In Malaysia, powerful Islamic courts have increasingly blocked Muslims from converting. China's Communist government has suppressed a number of Pentecostal churches that were winning converts. Buddhists in Myanmar have accused evangelical Protestant movements of undertaking aggressive proselytisation campaigns.

Attacks on Christians are increasingly common in Asia. In the Indian state of Orissa, for instance, at least a dozen Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs following the recent death of a Hindu leader who Christians say was killed by Maoist rebels. Following the attacks, Vatican officials said they were concerned about growing "Christianophobia" in Asia.

Now, churches are starting to push back. A coalition of churches in Malaysia urged voters ahead of the general election in March to choose parties that protect freedom of religion. Christians in South Korea, home to some of the world's largest Protestant megachurches, are exporting their message to places like Cambodia, which is mainly Buddhist. South Korean missionaries are also targeting China, where worshippers may attend only state-sanctioned churches, forcing many more underground.

The megachurches in Indonesia — where local Christians largely refrain from proselytising — are another sign of the pushback. Tong says local-government officials recently asked him to remove a large cross from atop his new church. He refused.

Still, to avoid unwanted conflict, the new megachurches take precautions. Most are built either in commercial districts or in Christian parts of town.

Tong, who also holds services in Mandarin each week in Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong, has a wide network to draw on. His new church in Jakarta, which cost US$27 million (RM91 million) for the main auditorium alone, was partly funded by James Riady of Indonesia's Lippo Group.. Riady, who paid a huge fine for illegal contributions to former US PresidentBill Clinton's 1996 election campaign, says the megachurch phenomenon is an attempt to redress the balance after years of denying communities the right to build churches.

In Kelapa Gading, a suburb of Jakarta where many residents are Christians, workers are putting the finishing touches on a megachurch that has cost US$8 million to build and will seat 10,000 people and include two indoor waterfalls. Its senior pastor, the Rev. Yacob Nahuway, is from Ambon in eastern Indonesia, where thousands died in Muslim-Christian fighting earlier this decade before a ceasefire was reached. Refugees from Ambon are working at the site.

Construction sometimes goes ahead without a permit. Just off a major toll road in Sentul, a town about 45 minutes outside Jakarta, a stadium-like building owned by the GBI Bethany Church is set to open later this year. Unable to get a permit, the church has to call it a convention centre. Local officials "know the building will be used for a church," says a construction manager who attends the church. "But they close their eyes." — The Wall Street Journal Asia