Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim on Saturday led demands for the government to end a crackdown that saw the arrests of an opposition politician, a blogger and a journalist.
The arrests on Friday under tough internal security laws raised fears that the ruling Barisan Nasional coalition will launch a widespread campaign against dissent as it faces an opposition bid to seize power within days.
Rights groups have condemned the use of the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for indefinite detention without trial, and the United States summoned Malaysia's top envoy in Washington in protest.
Anwar, who is trying to sign up enough defecting lawmakers to topple the government, said it was running scared after March general elections that handed his opposition alliance unprecedented gains.
"Instead of pursuing a reform agenda it has chosen to burn the country to save itself and to maintain its odious grip on power," he said in a statement.
The three arrested have been accused of inciting ethnic tensions in the multicultural country, but Anwar accused the government of stirring up a phony racial crisis in order to deflect attention from its own problems.
"We ask the government how far it is willing to go to usurp justice and destroy the institutions of good governance in its attempt to drive the Malaysian people against each other," he said.
Anwar insisted he has the support to seize power, but indicated that the timing of his parliamentary coup, slated for next Tuesday, could be affected by the ruckus.
"The priority is political stability. It's not an issue of deferring, we have the numbers to move," he told a press conference, adding he was "mindful" that he too could be targeted with arrest.
Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar denied the detention sweep was aimed at suppressing dissent and said the police had moved to secure public order as tensions rose and people started to hoard food.
"This country is multiracial and their relations can be fragile," he told a press conference. "If the police feel public order is under threat or possible conflict could occur in the country, they will take preventive action."
Syed Hamid said that the journalist, 32-year-old Tan Hoon Cheng from the Chinese-language Sin Chew Daily News in northern Penang state, was released Saturday afternoon.
"She is not a security threat," he said, adding that one of the reasons she was taken into custody was because "we received reports her life was threatened."
Tan was thrust into the national spotlight after reporting on an outburst from a ruling party member who called ethnic Chinese "squatters" and was disciplined by the ruling party which represents Muslim Malays.
The arrest drew rare condemnation from the Malaysian Chinese Association, the second-largest political party in the Barisan Nasional, which said the ISA may need to be abolished.
"MCA is dismayed, disappointed and shocked with the ISA detention of Tan Hoon Cheng," said Ng Yen Yen, head of the MCA's women's wing.
Syed Hamid said investigations would continue into the other two detainees and "if there is no reason to hold them they will be released within 60 days."
Opposition lawmaker Teresa Kok, 43, from the Chinese-based Democratic Action Party, a member of Anwar's opposition alliance, was arrested over allegations that she complained about the noise of morning prayers at a mosque.
She has said the accusation is "preposterous".
The third detainee is Malaysia's leading blogger, 58-year-old Raja Petra Kamaruddin, who has repeatedly targeted government figures on his website "Malaysia Today".
He has already been charged with sedition and defamation after linking Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and his wife to the sensational murder of a Mongolian woman.
Three Malaysian newspapers -- Tan's Sin Chew Daily News, The Sun, a free English-language daily, and Suara Keadilan, which is published by the opposition -- were also Friday threatened with suspension.
"This, together with the arrest of Raja Petra under the ISA, may be viewed as a chilling message that our fundamental freedoms are not secure," said Ambiga Sreenevasan of Malaysia's Bar Council.
http://news.my.msn.com/
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