Anti-Terrorism Laws and Terrorism in Malaysia: Assessing the Severity

Abstract

Over the years, the Malaysian government has been criticised for its preventive anti-terrorism laws. The laws are deemed too severe and counter-productive, in that it risks further radicalisation of Malaysians. An ISIS attack in 2016 was reportedly carried out in retaliation against the intense government suppression of the group members and supporters in the country. Central to this thesis is the question, are the laws adopted by the Malaysian government to combat terrorism, too severe? The analyses carried out in this thesis are intended to help determine whether what the Malaysian government is doing to combat terrorism is well within the rule of law. This is to ensure that it does not risk further radicalisation in the future. To that end, the thesis looks closely at seven anti-terrorism laws enacted in Malaysia. The severity of these laws are assessed by examining the clauses, and the arguments against each individual law. Then, it adopts a holistic approach of assessing all seven laws as a whole. Results of analyses reveal that individually, Malaysia’s anti-terrorism laws have varying level of severity, ranging from low to high. Holistically however, due to the same severe clauses shared across most of these laws, they constitute a severe and repressive counter-terrorism measure. Subsequently, in order to ascertain whether the severity of these laws have led to incidents of terrorism, this thesis looks at terror incidents that have taken place in Malaysia over the years. Here, the number of incidents, the nature of attacks, as well as the grievances behind them are analysed in detail. This thesis contends that although the ISIS attack in 2016 was the first and only one of its kind, the severe nature of the related laws risk fuelling terrorist retaliation in the future.