Nathaniel Tan has emailed me his response to the Parliament reply of the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad on Tuesday claiming that the actions against Nat and Raja Petra Kamarudin were not the “beginning of a clampdown on bloggers” but were normal actions taken against individuals who “break the law”.
Abdullah said the government will not restrict the free flow of information on the Internet but warned that the government will not hesitate to act against bloggers who flout the law.
He said Nat’s arrest and the police report against Raja Petra were usual procedures followed by the police and that such actions do not mean that the government is stifling dissent.
This is the response from Nat, who was detained and investigated for alleged breach of Section 8 of the Official Secrets Act 1972 relating to a comment left on his blog linking Deputy Internal Security Minister Mohd Johari Baharum to a corruption allegation.
Is Kidnapping Standard Police Procedure?
I am terribly saddened by the fact that Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi would claim that the police actions taken against me could be considered the “normal process of law” and “standard procedure.”
What he seems to be saying is that standard procedure includes:
1. Sloppy investigative work
No individual or institution with even the slightest understanding regarding the workings of the Internet and blogs would suspect me of being the author of the accusations against Johari Baharum.
2. Kidnapping
I was arrested by a group of 5-6 policemen in a darkened basement carpark with no one else around at 5pm. The police did not inform a single person as to my whereabouts until continued demands by my friends and family finally forced the police to reveal my location just before 11pm.
3. Denying arrestees access to legal counsel.
My lawyers were not informed of the time and place of my remand hearing. My repeated requests to have someone call my lawyers were all ignored. It is only by luck that human rights lawyer P Uthayakumar happened to be present at the magistrate’s court for another hearing that my lawyers were notified of the hearing. Furthermore, after my lawyers arrived, the police were relentless in their astoundingly unsophisticated attempts to deprive me of my constitutional right to consult with my legal counsel in confidence.
If these are indeed “normal processes” and “standard procedures,” then incidents like such occured in Pantai Batu Buruk in Terengganu merely confirm the fact that Abdullah Badawi and the government are turning Malaysia into a police state where intimidation and brutality are the order of the day.
Nathaniel Tan