Last week, Malaysiakini ran an article about Aishah Atam, a young Malay girl from Dungun, Terengganu. She had recently been arrested and placed into custody under Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 for alleged involvement in terrorism activities.
Malaysiakini pointed out that the girl's parents were at loss at her detention despite she being found not guilty of possessing 12 books which had been confirmed by security and religious experts as propagating Salafism. Malaysiakini had portrayed that Aishah had merely read the books as part of her studies.
Not Unique
Aishah's case is not unique, especially in a democratic system which is under threat from an ideological-based movement. Before Aishah's time, the threat then was communism, which espouse equal treatment to all citizens, which managed to create an idealistic appeal to certain segments of Malaysian population.
Today, the appeal is very different. The appeal to be part of a global movement to defend Islam from her enemies, including heretics from the Shiite sect.
Her case looks appealing to leftist movements and liberal groups who see the imposition of SOSMA as an impingement of human rights. This is despite the fact of her involvement with individuals who have since been prosecuted or currently under run from authorities for terrorist activities.
Never mind that if she's released, she would likely end up either as a sex slave in Syria, or blowing herself up in the name of her ideology. To these leftist movements and liberals, that is secondary and are likely to be exaggeration by right wing leaning pro-establishment movements.
Ideological War
In an ideological war, it is more important to win the perception war rather than to conduct the war in a fair manner. After all, no love is lost in a war.
In Aishah's case, the government had lost in the case against her because they could not conclusively prove that she had actually owned the 12 books. Never mind that the books were found in a common room where she was in when the police came to arrest her. In all, this only proved that someone in the household had the 12 books in their possession.
The 12 books includes books believed to have been written by pro-Daish movements supporters and Osama bin Laden. The nature of the books called for a revolution disguised as holy war against infidels and heretics had also been confirmed by renown security expert Prof Rohan Gunaratna. (However, do please note that Prof Rohan Gunaratna had been accused by some as being a fraud on terrorism).
Known Links to Terrorism
Despite losing the case, there is still fact of the case that she had been in close contact with Dr Mahmud Ahmad, a Universiti Malaya professor who was found to be involved in terrorist activities. He fled the country and went off the grid when he was about to be arrested by PDRM's Counter Terrorism unit and is now believed to be hiding in Southern Philippines.
There is also the fact that in 2014, a Mohd Gadafi from Kuala Kangsar, Perak had asked for her marriage. The man, whose actual name is Muamar Gadafi was later traced to a Daish cell in Malaysia and was arrested when they were assembling bombs on top of a hill, less than 24 hours away from their planned operation. Several IED were found in their midst as they were arrested.
This case caught my attention as the name of the suspect was played by the media for ironically resembling the fallen dictator of Libya.
Note also that Dr Mahmud Ahmad's case is also a reminiscent of Dr Azahari Hussin's case. Circa 2001/2002, PDRM was about to arrest Dr Azahari for his involvement with KMM and Jemaah Islamiyah when he made good of his escape. In 2005, he was killed when Indonesian police raided his hideout.
Deradicalisation Programme
To-date, Aishah has yet to undergo any deradicalisation programme. Thus, making her still a potential threat. While Daish have been principally using men in combat, they did not shy away from claiming the Saint Bernadino couple as their followers.
As mentioned earlier, I have identified Daish as an ideological-based movement instead of a religious-based movement. This is with basis as Salafism itself is a school of thought within the Islamic world. Their methods mimic other ideological-based movements where members delegated the rationale behind their actions to the ideology that they believe in.
Vulnerability of our Youth
Similar to other ideological-based movements, they prey on vulnerable individuals to be recruited into their fight. And in this case, vulnerable Aishah was enamoured with the notion of dying for her religion, of which she believe would guarantee her a place in heaven. It doesn't matter that many tenets of Daish do not sit well with Islam; the end trumps the means.
And similar to those who stood for her. The objective (removal of SOSMA) trump the means (using an individual associated with terrorism to bring down SOSMA).
SOSMA and Dewan Rakyat
With the Dewan Rakyat agreeing to the extension of SOSMA for the next 5 years, expect more attacks on either PDRM or SOSMA, together with other legislations like POTA and POCA. Never mind these laws protect us from being harmed by terrorist elements.
And the attack will continue until the next grenade attack happened.
SOSMA - A Law with Expiry Date
I must admit I was surprised of this. I have not yet taken a serious glance at the act before. Thus, it has escaped my attention that the act has a special clause which allows the act to be self repealing. This is a mechanism not found in the previous iteration of security law, ie Internal Security Act.
With this in place, this forces the law to be retabled every 5 years to ensure it remains relevant. The fact that the power to hold a person under arrest now no longer resides in the hand of the Home Minister, but to a panel which includes senior judge's, makes it very difficult to be misused for political reasons.
While detractors of the act points to the arrest of Datuk Khairuddin and Matthias Chang as example that the law can still be manipulated, the fact they were released by the Court shows that the existing controls are sufficient to prevent that from happening.
Irony Redefined
SOSMA is here to stay. While the law itself is ironic, ie proposed by people who claimed to defend human rights, it still could not beat the irony that certain segments of our society had regretted to the repealing Internal Security Act. Post Movida bombing, for about a month, I recalled reading regrets by some segment of our society on the abolishment of ISA.
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