LETTER | Saifuddin, a misfit at Home Ministry

LETTER | So our newly-appointed home minister thinks that the obnoxious Security Offences (Special Measures) Act, 2012 (Sosma) needs no review, let alone be repealed!

Let me say this, you are missing the forest for the trees in saying the said law allows court process to take place and Sosma was enacted to ensure public safety.

As a layman, I wish to ask Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail how public safety will be compromised if Sosma gets repealed.

Aren't there adequate alternative laws in this country that can be invoked to address concerns about public safety?

Was former MP Maria Chin Abdullah a grave threat to public safety for her to be incarcerated under Sosma? Wasn't that a glaring abuse of "the process of the law"?

And what have you to say to the families who gathered at Kajang Prison on Dec 7 - just to seek reasons for the detention of their loved ones for the past six months?

What justification can you give when it is said those detained under Sosma will need to languish in detention until all court trials and appeals are concluded?

What have you to say to those detained and their families, where the so-called "court process" drags on for years?

And where is your moral conviction on the presumption of innocence until proven guilty by keeping people behind bars without the right to their freedom for the entire process of having their case disposed of?

A responsible person would have reacted by saying that "it would be discussed at the cabinet" or likewise.

But no, you had to put on display your newfound position as the home minister which, in my view, is antecedent to the aspiration of the people to conscript laws, that infringe on the fundamental liberty of the people to the dumpster!

Even before the ink had dried on your appointment as the home minister, you earned the ire of civil society by downplaying the food and health complaints of detainees in the Kimanis immigration detention centre in Sabah.

You are quoted to have said that the frail-looking individual, who complained of poor food and health conditions, was already in poor health before his detention.

Regardless of the pre-detention health condition of the aggrieved individual, isn't it your responsibility to establish a proper investigation before jumping to conclusions?

Just weeks into your job and you have shown your disconnect to fundamental issues of personal liberty and the right to humane conditions in our immigration detention centres.

You, I am inclined to believe, are a misfit helming the Home Ministry!

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