ISA still relevant in S'pore: DPM Teo
SINGAPORE: Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and
Home Affairs Minister Teo Chee Hean has told Parliament that the
Internal Security Act continues to be relevant to the
country.
He explained that over the years, the government has
used the ISA in good faith and in a measured way, in the prevailing
security situations it has had to face, keeping Singapore safe and
its people secure.
Mr Teo said the government has used the ISA as a
last resort when there is a significant threat, and other laws are
not adequate to deal with the situation.
He said: "The difficult decisions that a government has to make to
protect its people must be made based on an individual country's
context and circumstances at the time.
"In Singapore, we have a law called the ISA, which empowers the
government to act, but it comes with a system of safeguards and
provides the detainee certain rights which must be accorded to
him."
Since the Malaysian Prime Minister announced that his country will
be abolishing the Internal Security Act, there has been much debate
as to the future of the preventive detention law in
Singapore.
Mr Teo made it clear that determining what is a security threat to
Singapore that requires the use of the ISA requires judgement. That
decision must be made by the elected government of the day, at the
given time and based on the situation at hand.
He said the ISA allows the government to act quickly to prevent a
threat from developing into something very serious such as a
bombing, or to stem an organised pattern of subversion which
promotes civil disturbances and disorder.
Mr Teo told Parliament that the government needed to use the ISA
from the 1960s till the late 1980s to counter the Communist Party
of Malaya. In the 1990s, it was rarely used except in a handful of
espionage cases.
But it proved critical after September 11 to protect Singapore from
global jihadist terrorism.
Mr Teo said with the ISA, the Singapore Government could take
prompt pre-emptive action to neutralise and disrupt the Jemaah
Islamiyah network.
Otherwise, there could have been several truck bombs targeted at
embassies exploding in Singapore in 2002.
Mr Teo also explained why a specific Terrorism Act would not be
adequate. He said that such an act would not allow pre-emptive
action against those who have not yet committed overt deeds that
warrant prosecution but nevertheless belong to a wider terrorist
network, unless the act is very broad in scope and provides for
preventive detention just like the ISA.
He said: "A Terrorism Act drafted, say in 2002, would probably not
have adequately anticipated new forms of the terror threat, like
the self-radicalised lone-wolf which has emerged in recent
years.
"A case in point is the full-time NS man who was self-radicalised
through the Internet. He had expressed intent to conduct jihad
abroad and had already made online contact with a suspected
Al-Qaeda recruiter and radical ideologue Anwar al-Awlaki. But that
would not have been sufficient grounds to charge him in court, as
under normal criminal legislation, he had not yet committed an
offence.
"The ISA enabled the government to detain him preventively, just
before he embarked on demolition training in his course. We now
have time to assess, counsel and rehabilitate him. This avoided
exposing Singapore to a high, perhaps unacceptable degree of risk.
The consequence may not just be loss of innocent lives, but also
serious damage to inter-communal relations and trust."
Mr Teo added: "For the foreseeable future, Singapore will need a
law containing provisions like those in the ISA, including
preventive detention, to empower the government to preempt and
prevent serious threats to our security. The precise form the law
takes may evolve with time and circumstances.
"But for the present, the ISA is a shield we need that protects us
against these threats, allowing us to deal with them swiftly and
effectively before they cause us serious and possibly permanent
harm."
-CNA/ac