http://asia.news.yahoo.com/071213/3/3cbhh.htmlFACTBOX - Five facts on Malaysia's Internal Security ActREUTERS - Malaysia has invoked its notorious Internal Security Act(ISA) to detain five ethnic Indians from a group that staged a massanti-government protest last month.There are currently 74 people, mostly suspected Muslim militants,being detained under the ISA, the government said last month.Here are five facts on the ISA.-- Passed in 1960, three years after Malaysian independence, the ISAwas designed to curb a perceived communist threat. It grew out ofemergency regulations that were part of then Malaya's campaign againstthe Malayan Communist Party in British colonial times. NeighbourSingapore, once part of Malaysia, kept the ISA after leaving theMalaysian Federation in 1965.-- The act allows for the arrest and detention for an indefiniteperiod of a suspect judged as "likely" to commit an act deemeddangerous to national security. Detainees can be held for 60 dayswithout legal counsel, and preventive detention can then be renewedevery two years.-- Amended dozens of times, it also has provisions to restrict freedomof assembly, expression and movement, among others. Since the Sept.11, 2001 attacks on U.S. cities, it has been used to lock up dozens ofsuspected Islamic militants. Most ISA detainees are kept at Kamuntingprison in northwest Perak state.-- The Human Rights Watch has said governments have consistently usedthe ISA for their own political purposes to detain thousands ofcitizens, including political opposition leaders, academics, tradeunionists as well as religious, social, environmental and women'srights activists. Rights groups criticise the ISA as a draconianviolation of international human rights standards, and a tool tostifle peaceful political dissent.- In October 2007, opposition figure Abdul Malek Hussin became thefirst person to win a significant payment for illegal detention underthe ISA. He was awarded nearly $750,000 in damages for his Sept 1998detention, for addressing a "Reformasi" demonstration calling forpolitical reform.Source: Reuters