Malaysia deports 4 militant suspects, arrests six

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - Malaysia has deported four Indonesian suspected militants who had been held under the country's tough security laws, and made six new arrests, a rights group said on Friday.

The four, held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows indefinite detention without trial, were sent back to Indonesia on August 15 following their release on August 4, the GMI group, which campaigns against the act, said in a statement.

They included Shahrial Sirin and Abdullah Minyak Silam, both held for six years in the Kamunting detention camp in northern Malaysia for suspected links to the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) militant network, GMI said.

JI, which wants to create an Islamic caliphate in Southeast Asia, has been blamed for several deadly bombing attacks in the region, including the 2002 bombings that killed more than 200 people on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.

"We believe that the release of the four is the results of the persistent and continuous campaigns to demand for the abolition of the ISA," the rights group said.

It said the authorities made six new arrests under the ISA in July. But it said it had no details on the detainees.

Home (interior) ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

"GMI reiterates that punishing or detaining people without giving them any opportunity to defend themselves is barbaric," it said.

Malaysia is holding 68 people, including 33 foreigners, under the ISA. They included five Hindu activists who organized a mass anti-government protest last year.

The ISA, designed to curb a perceived communist threat in the early years after independence from Britain in 1957, grew out of emergency regulations from the colonial era.

(Reporting by Jalil Hamid, Editing by Alex Richardson)