[Oh yeah.... what a lesson. Even professors at MIT do not teach such a lesson because brilliant students tend to outsmart everyone else including their lecturers. Without critics Hollywood film would not have conquered the world. There would be no Galileo in Malaysia politics. - Editor]

07Jul2001

By Mark Baker, Herald Correspondent, in Singapore.

Mahathir wields security laws to teach student critics a lesson.

The Malaysian Government has launched a crackdown on university campuses in the latest effort to stamp out growing opposition to its authoritarian rule.

A student leader has been arrested under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows detention without trial for up to two years, and another expelled from his university for joining anti-Government protests. Education authorities warned there would be further arrests and expulsions if student groups continued to agitate for political reform and an end to summary detentions.

The youth wing of the ruling United Malays National Organisation is reported to be preparing to publish on Monday the names of so-called "militant groups" on campuses around the country and details of their activities.

Mr Khairul Anuar, a 24-year-old engineering student at Kuala Lumpur's Institut Kemahiran Mara, was arrested on Thursday after being ordered to report to police headquarters to explain his role in a protest outside the national mosque last month. Ten police later raided his home and confiscated a computer, video discs and other material.

Police said Mr Khairul was helping them "in their investigation into activities found detrimental to national security".

It is believed to be the first time since 1974 that the ISA, favoured by the Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, as a way of quelling dissent, has been used to target students.

Six prominent opposition figures arrested under the act in April continue to be held in prison despite a judge condemning its use as a political weapon and releasing four others who were detained at the same time.

The Government-appointed Human Rights Commission, Suhakam, attacked the arrest of Mr Khairu, and said those accused of crimes should be charged and allowed the rights and protection of the normal legal system.

"Detention without a proper trial or due process of law is against the very tenets of human rights. If the student has committed any offence, charge him in court," said Commissioner Anuar Zainal Abidin.

In another development, Mr Rafzan Ramli, a second-year engineering student at the Universiti Teknologi Mara who also took part in the national mosque protest, was expelled on Thursday.

Three other students at the International Islamic University were also reported to be facing expulsion for their political activism, and another student at the Universiti Sains Malaysia was awaiting disciplinary action for selling anti-ISA badges.

In a separate raid on Thursday, a team of police searched the home of Mr Abu Zaki Ismail, a lecturer at a private tertiary college in Kuala Lumpur, and seized a computer and other material. He had been accused of publishing a fake issue of University Malaya's student council magazine that attacked the Government.

The Education Minister, Mr Musa Mohamad, signalled further reprisals, and said private colleges were being warned not to enrol students who were expelled from public universities.

The moves to combat student dissent came as a senior Government official threatened fresh regulations to silence criticism of the Government on the Internet.

The minister assisting the Prime Minister, Dr Rais Yatim, said laws would be tightened to control the operations of independent Web sites that have grown rapidly over the past year as an alternative news source for Malaysians.

"These perpetrators think they can get away with the existing laws, but we can catch up with them," Dr Rais warned.