(Petaling Jaya, Monday): DAP is shocked by the first Internal Security Act detention since Datuk Abdullah Ahmad Badawi became the new Home Minister and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of pro-Anwar computer technician Shaharudin Abdul Kadir.
Shaharudin was detained on 19th February 1999 in the early hours of the morning at his home at Taman Tasik Selatan by 10 plainclothes policemen. No reasons were given to the family members of his whereabouts and the reasons for his detention. The police confiscated dozens of diskettes and his computer hard-disk.
Shaharudin’s arrest makes history as the first ISA Information Technology (IT) arrest, and threatens the very success of the Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) as it makes nonsense of the Bill of Guarantees issued by the government to attract the world’s cream of IT brains to Malaysia.
What is the use of telling the world that there would be no censorship of cyberspace when the ISA could be used against cyber-practitioners?
(22/2/99)