Fwd(GLW): Activists oppose Malaysian and Australian `anti-terrorism' laws

["Alan Bradley" <abradley1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>From Green Left Weekly, May 8, 2002.
-----------------------------------------

Activists oppose Malaysian and Australian `anti-terrorism' laws
BY PIP HINMAN

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".

< The remainder of the article can be found at:
http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/491p2.htm >





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