KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- You can be seized and imprisoned for years, without trial, behind barbed wire or in solitary confinement, under a law so dreaded that the sound of its initials, "ISA," are enough to provoke fear and silence even among the brave.

"It is both psychological as well as physical torture," Syed Husin Ali said in a taped interview, reflecting on his six years of detention under the Internal Security Act.

"The techniques can be described in three ways. First, coercion, using physical force to make you submit and confess to false things.

"Second is persuasion. There will be two faces of the interrogators, one soft and kind, and the other a brutal one.

"Third is deception. For example, 'If you tell us what you have, or confess, you can be released'."

But often, after agreeing to "confess," you will simply be tossed back in jail with your coerced confession now used against you, he added.

British Legacy

Malaysia's interrogation techniques date back to British colonial times, Syed Husin said. "They were trained by the British, and I think the British trained them good."

When Prime Minister Mahathir bin Mohamad arranged for his heir apparent, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim, to be arrested for alleged homosexual sodomy and corruption in September, many Malaysians and foreign leaders expressed outrage.

Anwar was Syed Husin's former student and prison cell-mate.

And Anwar is now languishing in jail, after being arrested under the ISA -- for the second time in his life.

On Wednesday, October 14, authorities relented, however, and transferred Anwar to a prison where he will be held on normal remand instead of continuing to cage him under the ISA, police said.

His remand confinement is at Sungai Buloh, Malaysia's newest prison, where Anwar will be guarded by high-tech security including closed-circuit video monitors, electric fences and computerized gates and doors.

Anwar was apparently freed because of local and international protests over Malaysia's use of the ISA against him.

Anwar earlier claimed police beat him until blood oozed from his nose and he fell unconscious.

The ISA, meanwhile, continues to haunt Anwar and others in this Southeast Asian nation.

His wife has been threatened with "sedition" under the ISA if she calls into question the justice system, or speaks too harshly about other aspects of Mahathir's government.

Anwar was jailed once before under the ISA, for 22 months, in the mid-1970s.

With him for one year of that imprisonment was Syed Husin, who was also Anwar's teacher at school, and comrade on the front lines of rallies and demonstrations during those turbulent years.

Malaysia's system of indefinite "detention without trial" is hated and feared by many, and has been used since British colonial times to crush all opposition to whoever is in power.

Thousands of Malaysians have suffered imprisonment under the ISA.

But its inner workings, tribunals, and resulting forms of punishment are known only by people such as Syed Husin, 62, who experienced its relentless, steel-trap grip.

Student and Teacher Busted

"Anwar was detained for 22 months, while I was detained for six years," Syed Husin said. "There were periods when we were put together. I spent over a year with him" in jail.

Their bust occurred in 1974.

"There was a peasant hunger march in the northern part of Malaysia, and it brought to the streets 25,000 people, mostly peasants protesting the fall in the price of rubber, and the decision of parliament to increase the monthly allowance of its members.

"Anwar gave a speech at that rally. He was a youth leader then. He had been my student in 1968 and 1969. I taught him rural sociology.

"I was an associate professor at the University of Malaya, teaching rural sociology and social anthropology. I gave a speech which was considered rabble-rousing.

"The allegation was that I was supporting the communist party in overthrowing the Malaysian regime. But I wasn't even a member of the communist party," Syed Husin added.

"I was jailed from 1974 to 1980. During that time, I was put in solitary for more than six months. I was spat on, slapped and boxed.

Today, Syed Husin is president of the small Malaysian Peoples Party, and describes himself as a "socialist." In 1990, he quit his job as professor of anthropology and sociology at the University of Malaya to focus on politics.

In 1996, he wrote a book of his ISA experience, titled, "Two Faces, Detention Without Trial."

ISA allows for indefinite imprisonment, despite no trial ever being held.

According to the law's text, the ISA is "an act to provide for the internal security of Malaysia, preventive detention, the prevention of subversion, (and) the suppression of organized violence against persons and property."

The ISA states a person can "be detained for any period not exceeding two years."

But the ISA also allows "any detention order, or restriction order, be extended for such further period, not exceeding two years, as (the government) may specify, and thereafter for such further periods, not exceeding two years at a time."

In other words, a person's imprisonment can be extended every two years, for another two years, forever if need be.

"It is a Catch 22," Syed Husin added, referring to the ISA's potentially endless cycle of incarceration, which is difficult to break.

Though Anwar later served as the prime minister's powerful number two man for many years in the government, Anwar didn't publicly fight to end the ISA, even though he earlier suffered under it.

"There is an irony," Syed Husin said. "He failed to voice strongly his opposition to a Draconian law which was used on him before. Probably he wanted to make sure his position was safe with Mahathir," and not get tossed out of power.

"Anwar even defended the use of the ISA to detain people in 1987," Syed Husin said.

"That was the last big crackdown against NGOs (non-government organizations), opposition politicians and educationalists, mainly Chinese educationalists."

According to a translation of one of Anwar's last speeches before he was arrested in September, Anwar told his followers, "I may be detained and...coerced, threatened and beaten.

"I am not frightened by all that. I have gone through such torture before and, God willing, I will bear it.

"But I felt it was important for me to speak to you now, because there is a possibility, during my detention, that I may be injected with some kind of drug to sedate me, or to disorient me, or to somehow make me unaware of what I am saying. So I declare my innocence now.

"I know the capabilities of our police officers. Some employ Gestapo methods, some use the style of police in the Apartheid regime, and some use the Israeli Mossad style," Anwar reportedly said.

The ISA also includes secretive, Kafka-style tribunals.

Inmates are brought before a three-man Advisory Board for review at least every two years, but are often sent back to their cells under additional indefinite extensions of their imprisonment.

"Normally, the Advisory Board asks you if you regret, and if so, you have to sign all these confessions and conditions," said Syed Husin, who experienced repeated tribunal interrogations.

"But there are cases where detainees said, 'Yes,' and signed all these things and weren't released, because the Special Branch thought they were dangerous people, or that they were not repenting really.

"One person I know, Wai Saing, was detained for 15 years" under ISA without trial.

"The Advisory Board sends a report to the Interior Ministry, and it is up to the minister to decide, along with a recommendation from the police."

Mahathir, in addition to being prime minister, is also minister of the interior, and thus presided over Anwar's appeals for freedom.

About 200 people are currently held under the ISA, though the number fluctuates widely, Syed Husin added.

Three Little Letters

Satirical Malaysian author Kam Raslan recently wrote, "The ISA. Three little letters that sends shivers down our middle-class spines -- assuming the middle-class have spines to send shivers down.

"It is our duty to live nice, quiet, boring little lives, led in quaking terror under the shadow of the ISA."

On October 10, more than 2,000 lawyers of the Malaysian Bar Council condemned the ISA as "an obnoxious piece of legislation undermining fundamental human rights, basic democratic principles and the rule of law" which must be scrapped.

While the Bar Council met, more than 10,000 people marched through downtown Kuala Lumpur on October 10 in protest of the ISA, Anwar's detention and Mahathir's government in one of the biggest street demonstrations since Anwar's arrest.

London-based Amnesty International said, "Anwar's treatment at the hands of the police shows the government's blatant disregard for basic human rights.

"By misusing Malaysia's laws to detain his political opponents, Prime Minister Mahathir is contravening international legal standards on freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial and the treatment of detainees."

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Richard S. Ehrlich has a Master's Degree in Journalism from Columbia University, and is the co-author of the classic book of epistolary history, "HELLO MY BIG BIG HONEY!" -- Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews.

Richard S. Ehrlich's Asia news, non-fiction book, plus hundreds of photographs are available at his website http://www.oocities.org/asia_correspondent