The feared ISA, is a successor to a British colonial law passed to battle communist insurgency. On Thursday
student activist Khairul Anuar Ahmad Zainuddin, 24, was detained under the the ISA. Khairul was among seven
students arrested during a June 8 protest against the law at the National Mosque in Kuala Lumpur. They were
later released on bail and reported back to police Thursday to see if bail would be extended, at which time
Khairul was indefinitely detained.

Lim Kit Siang, chairman of the opposition Democratic Action Party described the second arrest in two days as
"most deplorable and marks a dangerous slide of Malaysia into a new abyss of human rights violations."

Lim in a statement Saturday said the police action showed that Mahathir was ready to break from international
norms on democracy and human rights to consolidate his power position.

"All Malaysian democrats must stand up to oppose the latest encroachments on what is left of human rights
and democratic freedoms 44 years after independence in 1957," he said.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who celebrates 20 years in power in July, on Friday defended
the use of the security act, saying students were not above the law.

But rights group have said it is a "calculated move by the Mahathir regime to silence student activism in
campus."

The fresh round of arrests under the ISA comes nearly three months after police detained 10 Anwar supporters
under the same law in April.

Four of the 10 have since been freed but six were sent last month to a detention camp in a northern state to be
held for up to two years, sparking widespread outrage and mounting calls for the ISA to be repealed.

The government says the supporters planned violent street protests to topple Mahathir's administration. No
evidence has been made public.