Dewan Rakyat passes three bills

KUALA LUMPUR: The Dewan Rakyat today passed three bills in its effort to strengthen the law in fighting terrorism and militant activities.
They are the Special Measures Against Terrorism in Foreign Countries Bill 2015, Prison (Amendment) Bill 2015 and the Prevention of Crime (Amendment) Bill 2015.
The Special Measures on Terrorism bill will allow Malaysia to prevent and stop people from travelling to IS-conflict areas and will be applicable in the implementation of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill 2015, which was passed on Monday.
The bill is aimed at preventing Malaysia from becoming a source country or transit point for those who want to join terrorist or militant groups while ensuring that Malaysians do not get involved in any such activities overseas.
Addressing the much raised concerns on possible abuse of the laws, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar assured these laws will only be enforced on those suspected to have committed security offences based on intelligence information.
He said there will be no blanket use of the law on all those travelling to and from countries with unrest and conflict or identified to have terrorism threats like Philippines, Syria or Jordan.
Wan Junaidi said the intelligence team's surveillance will have information on the suspects before the law is enforced on them.
He said the Inspector-General of Police and Director-General of Immigration would be working together to strengthen the standard operating procedures in preventing suspected terrorists from coming in or IS sympathisers from leaving the country.
The amendments to the Prison Act empowers the minister to appoint lock-ups at any police stations and court houses to be places for the confinement of those remanded under the proposed Prevention of Terrorism Act (Pota) 2015.
Along with this, the amendments to the Prevention of Crime Act introduces the definition of terrorist to enable enforcement on terrorist acts.
It also aimed to provide parity between the Prevention of Crime Board and the Prevention of Terrorism Board, which would be established under the proposed Pota.
Among others, the bill introduced a new sub-section to empower the minister to prescribe the allowances to be paid to witnesses summoned and allows those detained be given the opportunity of making representations against the detention order.