page_title: Internal Security Act (Singapore)
section_title: History and developments
hierarchical_section_title: Internal Security Act (Singapore) / History and developments
caption_attribution_description: English: Teo Chee Hean (simplified Chinese: 张志贤; pinyin: Zhāng Zhìxián; born 27 December 1954), the Minister for Defence of Singapore and a Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris-Punggol Group Representation Constituency. He was formerly Minister for the Environment, Second Minister for Defence and Minister for Education. The photograph was taken at the beginning of a bilateral meeting with the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at the Shangri-La Hotel Singapore on 3 June 2006. Rumsfeld was in Singapore to meet with regional allies and attend the fifth annual International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Conference, known as the Shangri-La Dialogue.
context_page_description: The Internal Security Act of Singapore is a statute that grants the executive power to enforce preventive detention, prevent subversion, suppress organized violence against persons and property, and do other things incidental to the internal security of Singapore. The present Act was originally enacted by the Parliament of Malaysia as the Internal Security Act 1960, and extended to Singapore on 16 September 1963 when Singapore was a state of the Federation of Malaysia.
  Before a person can be detained under the ISA by the Minister for Home Affairs, the President must be satisfied that such detention is necessary for the purposes of national security or public order. In the landmark case of Chng Suan Tze v. Minister for Home Affairs, the Court of Appeal sought to impose legal limits on the power of preventive detention by requiring the Government to adduce objective facts which justified the President's satisfaction. Two months after the decision, a series of legislative and constitutional amendments was enacted that effectively reversed the Chng Suan Tze decision. These amendments were subsequently confirmed to be valid by the High Court and Court of Appeal in Teo Soh Lung v.
context_section_description: British colonial Malaya introduced the Emergency Regulations Ordinance 1948 on 7 July 1948 during the Malayan Emergency in response to a Communist uprising and guerrilla war. The regulations allowed the police to arrest anybody suspected of having acted or being likely to act in a way that would threaten security without evidence or a warrant, hold them incommunicado for investigation, and detain them indefinitely without the detainee ever being charged with a crime or tried in a court of law.
  The successor to the Emergency Regulations Ordinance, the Preservation of Public Security Ordinance 1955 ("PPSO"), was introduced a result of the 1955 Hock Lee bus riots by the Labour Party government in Singapore. There was strong opposition to the PPSO by the party then in opposition, the People's Action Party ("PAP"). In 1958, Lee Kuan Yew of the PAP accused the Lim Yew Hock government of using the PPSO to stifle political dissent.
  In 1960, three years after Malaya's independence, the Emergency was declared over. However, the Malayan Internal Security Act 1960 ("ISA") was passed in place of the PPSO with much of the same powers. During parliamentary debates on the Act, Malayan Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman stated that the ISA would only be applied against only the remaining Communist insurgents. The Malayan Communist Party and its insurgents eventually surrendered in 1989. Nonetheless, the ISA was retained in Malaysia.
  The drafter of the Malayan ISA was Hugh Hickling, a British lawyer, author and professor. In 1989, he commented that he "could not imagine then that the time would come when the power of detention, carefully and deliberately interlocked with Article 149 of the Constitution, would be used against political opponents, welfare workers and others dedicated to nonviolent, peaceful activities". Nonetheless, he commented that he supported review of the ISA but it was not for him to say if the law should be scrapped, as "you've got a multi-racial society [in Malaysia] in which emotions can run high very quickly".
  When Singapore joined the Federation of Malaya in 1963, the Malayan ISA was extended to Singapore. The Act was retained in Singapore even after its separation from Malaysia in 1965. The current version of the Act is known as Chapter 143 of the 1985 Revised Edition. In September 2011, the debate over whether the ISA should be retained was re-opened after Malaysia announced that it was considering repealing the ISA. Prime Minister Najib Razak stated that the Act would be abolished and replaced by new laws to safeguard peace and order.
  The legitimacy and relevance of the ISA were subsequently debated by former ISA detainees, the Singapore Government, and others. Member of Parliament for Pasir Ris–Punggol Group Representation Constituency, Dr. Janil Puthucheary, commented in Parliament on 18 August 2011 that "while he felt it inappropriate to detain a citizen without trial, he is convinced by the hard logic that the safety and security of Singapore must be paramount". However, he agreed that there needed to be more safeguards to prevent abuse of the ISA and that "the ISA needs to be discussed in a more transparent manner, even as the facts associated with a given detainee need to be kept secret".
  The following day, 19 October 2011, Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs Teo Chee Hean explained the relevance of the ISA and its powers of preventive detention. He noted that in the 1960s preventive detention was primarily used to counter the subversive Communist threat posed by the Malayan Communist Party which was hiding within legal organizations. For the past two decades, though, preventive detention has helped safeguard Singapore's national security by countering threats posed by espionage and terrorism. Preventive detention allows for a comprehensive assessment of a threat, as opposed to a criminal case tried before a court which requires the court to consider only the specific acts that relate to the charge. Detaining those who have not yet committed ove
caption: Teo Chee Hean, the Deputy Prime Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs in the 12th Parliament of Singapore, justified the Internal Security Act in Parliament in October 2011
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