It’s funny reading how many times Samy Vellu had to stress that it’s not a political stunt; I doubt many would agree with him in this sense. He should have make the call much earlier, but it’s better late than never… political stunt or not, I don’t really mind as long as it makes a change at the end.

This raise the same old issue again… what’s the point of having ISA at the first place? It’s probably the most barbaric act we have in Malaysia. I can understand the need for certain laws to protect the nation against terrorism or racial crash, but locking up people without trial for months and years is just not right.

I would have support an act to detain a suspicious terrorist for prolonged period, say for 14 or 28 days… but if there is no solid proofs to file any charges, the suspect have to be let go. It’s one of the basic fundamentals of our constitution… that we would rather let a criminal off the hook than to put an innocent man into wrong justice.

I am not saying that the Hindraf 5 are innocent; the Hindraf memorandum still rings in my mind occasionally… truth or not it’s seditious nonetheless. However, it’s just not right to detain anyone without giving them a fair trial.

It’s not just about releasing the Hindraf 5… ISA should be abolished.

Quoted from Nuraina A Samad…
“If the government was so sure that the 5 Hindraf leaders had breached any law of the land, then the 5 should have been subjected to the processes of law. Detention under the ISA is not a due process of law. It is unjust.”

I don’t feel good about this at all. I am against the use of ISA, but I am also against using children to fight for political or social causes.

I can understand the girl’s pledge to have her father home… but to fight for the rights of Indians? Am I supposed to believe that a 5-year-old girl could have such a mature thinking without being influenced or exploited by the adults?

Believe in what you want… I see this as a shameful exploitation.

I am not sure how the judge has made his call; is the compensation meant for the violence against Abdul Malek, or that the arrest itself is deemed unlawful?

I wonder if there will be any further action against those police officers that were involved in the case. They have committed a crime; monetary compensation is not enough to pay for what they did.

Besides, it is the tax payers, people like us that are going to pay the money. The police lost nothing beside their dented reputation, and we have to pay for the crime that they committed. Quite ridiculous ain’t so?

What concerned me though, is on how he was arrested (I am not going into the arrest details, you can read it from Tian Chua instead) and the reason for his arrest…

Mohd Johari Baharom’s involvement

Nat was arrested on Friday afternoon (July 13) under Official Secret Act (OSA) and is remanded for 4 days under Section 8 of the Official Secret Act (OSA) over allegation of possession of documents pertaining to Johari Baharum’s alleged involvement in corruption. [Jeff Ooi]

It’s quite apparent that Nat’s arrest is a result of the order from Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharom, who has just been cleared of his corruption investigation a few days ago.

Johari actually has a decent point to fight against slandering, but the timing of the order make it extremely fishy, as if it’s a personal rage rather than act of wisdom. Besides, there are much more serious cases (rising crimes etc.) to be focused by the Internal Security Ministry and the police force.

Why is Nat arrested?

OSA is a joke, it is as rubbish as the Internal Security Act (ISA). The originally idea of OSA is to prevent leakage of confidential government documents (official secrets) that could harm the country. However the huge problem with OSA is that there are no clear definitions on ‘official secrets’…

Basically if an authorized person (cabinet, minister and some others) decided to name something official secrets, they are official secrets. It could be some really important documents or a love letter from the mistress… it will be protected under the act regardless; even the judiciary have no rights to question the decisions.

Samy Vellu has previously revoked the act when asked to present the documents regarding highway deals to the public. You can see how convenient the act is to protect the government VIPs from any corruption allegations, and how foolish the act is.

[Learn more about OSA from lawyer-blogger Malik Imtiaz Sarwar]

Back to Nat… there are no clear indications on what ‘official secrets’ he possessed, but since that the case is investigated by the Cyber Crime Unit, we can assumed that it has to be something related to his blog.

According to Susan, Nat was arrested because of a blog comment that linked to Johari’s alleged corruption. If this is true, it’s a real joke indeed.

Should we report on suspected corruption?

This raises another concern… should we report on suspected corruption if we somehow have some leads to some issues. It could come from an email, a blog comment, or some documents that were slipped through the door or mailbox, who knows… it might happen. So what are we going to do with those data? Should we report to Anti-Corruption Agency (ACA) or what?

If we do report to the ACA and the alleged politician was found not guilty, we could end up like Nat thanks to the wonderful Official Secret Act… and if the proofs are solid enough, we could end up being blown off by C4 explosive before the case is actually opened. Wonderful.

All the best to Nat

I don’t know him, but I hope he is innocent of any charges, and my best wishes to his family and friends.

Update July 18 – Nat is released, but lots of questions remain unanswered.