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Malaysia's Dr Mahathir defends opposition crackdown

In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has defended the use of a decades old emergency law to arrest opposition leaders and supporters.

But, as Geoff Thompson reports, Dr Mahathir has said he doesn't want to see anymore black eyes.

When Malaysia's former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim was arrested under the Internal Security Act he was beaten up and given a black eye by the chief of police. Speaking of the latest ISA arrests of seven opposition figures, the current deputy prime minister, Abdullah Badawi said "I don't want to see another black eye. I've had enough of one black eye and we don't want to see another two or three more". His boss Prime Minister Mahathir has defended the arrests saying that the police have evidence that the arrested men planned to use explosives. Dr Mahathir has also defended the use of the feared ISA laws, saying normal laws require certain evidence, procedures and processes, which from the police point of view is not effective from preventing something from happening.

12/04/01 22:10:38 | ABC Radio Australia News

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