KUCHING, Oct 18: The Security Offences (Special Measures) Act (Sosma) should stay in place as a pre-emptive law to keep away criminals, extremists and even terrorists from disrupting the security of the country even before they commit any offences.
Santubong MP Datuk Seri Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar said although the act drew flak from various groups, under certain environment, the country required the law to protect the nation.
“Laws like Sosma has always been looked at with disdain by a lot of people particularly the ‘human rights groups’, but under certain environment, the nation requires this law to protect the country and the people at large.
“The leaders have a responsibility to guarantee social and political stability, to ensure the economic stability and national security. The security of the nation and economic stability means the survival of the nation,” he said in a statement today.
Wan Junaidi was reacting to the various negative views on Sosma following the detention of several individuals with alleged links to the supposedly-defunct Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) militant group in the peninsula recently.
One of the negative views came from Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), which said that detention without trial, as provided for under Sosma, were against the core principles of human rights.
Wan Junaidi, who is former Home Minister, said the concept of the rights, freedom and free speech have been universally accepted as the cornerstones of democratic society and subscribed by all democratic nations of the world.
Those rights and freedom were not without limit and scope, he added.
The security of the masses, safety of the nation and social, political and economic stability must be protected, he continued.
“The government has the utmost responsibility to protect the nation from undesirable elements. Some of these elements could not be detected and evidence acceptable to court could not be secured before death and destruction happens.
“That is where the pre-emptive law that allows limited detention without trial during investigation to be made. So that the people in general could live in peace and nation economic stability is endured for the nation’s survival,” said Wan Junaidi.
He explained that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom have the law with various levels of safe-guard in place.
The nature and level of safe guard were measured based on the country’s need and relevance, and there is no universal standard for the safeguards, except what is reasonable for the respective country, he said.
“Malaysia devised it own legal safeguard entrenched in the Sosma, which is considered appropriate for Malaysia. With all sorts of disruptive, destructive and dangerous elements in the world today, we could not live in peace without the kind of law in place.
“We could not wait for any mosque, church, temple or business house, strategic government premises, to be blown to rubble before the government create the law.
“Laws like Sosma, after the abolishment of the Internal Security Act 1960 (ISA), becomes essential to Malaysia,” he continued.
Wan Junaidi said sometimes, organisation like LTTE is considered defunct by some but the death of a leader does not mean the end of the organisation.
“There are others who are trying to revive it in any other countries if its own country become too unfavourable for them. It’s under these circumstances, that the law like Sosma become extremely useful in order to avoid our country become the headquarters of the newly revived organisation,” he pointed out.
He reminded that it is the government’s supreme responsible to protect the country from harmful, dangerous and destructive groups.
“The PDRM (police), who holds the mandate to protect the country must be given powers and appropriate authority to protect us. That is why Sosma is important and ought to be retained.” — DayakDaily
