Nazri: EO needed to curtail communism

Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Nazri Abdul Aziz says communism is still around and that's why there is a necessity for the Emergency Ordinance and the ISA.

KUALA LUMPUR: The government is justifying the continued use of the Emergency Ordinance by invoking the spectre of communism and saying communism is still a threat to national security.

Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department Nazri Abdul Aziz said as long as communism is still around, preventive laws such as the Emergency Ordinance (EO) are here to stay.

He said although Malaysia was not experiencing an insurgency, these laws were still seen as a necessity to the government.

“The name of the law is just Emergency Ordinance. The communist (insurgency), even though it has been declared over, the EO is still in effect so that this (communism) will not happen,” he told reporters at a press conference at the KL Sentral Hilton.

Nazri was answering questions raised by human rights groups that the EO, along with other laws such as the Internal Security Act (ISA) were no longer needed.

Yesterday, the Association for the Promotion of Human Rights (Proham) said that the six PSM activists detained under the EO – for allegedly being a national threat – on July 2 should have been given due process in court.

Proham added that sections under the Penal Code would have been enough for the six, which included Sungai Siput MP Dr D Michael Jeyakumar.

The movement also said that Malaysia’s security forces were no longer fighting against an armed struggle, and protested the use of the EO, which slaps people with a 60-day detention order.

Possession of communism t-shirts

Nazri however, disagreed with this sentiment, and maintained that communism was still a threat to national security.

“The Emergency may have expired, but the communism understanding (fahaman) is still around. It doesn’t mean that even though there is no armed struggle …that we have accepted communism,” he said.

The minister maintained that the belief in communism was still very much alive and well, saying that this was demonstrated by the T-shirts that the PSM activists supposedly possessed.

Nazri said that possession of the T-shirts showed that use of the EO was warranted.

“This is a security issue, a problem that needs police action. If the police feel that it is affecting (national) security, then it is left to the police (to decide) according to the law or under the EO,” he said.