Reformasi activist detained in 'rocket launcher' ISA dragnet dies
Published: Aug 27, 2024 6:36 PM
Former Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee and reformasi activist Badaruddin Ismail, who is better known as Pak Din, breathed his last this morning at the age of 80.
His remains were laid to rest at the Muslim cemetery in Keramat in Kuala Lumpur.
Badaruddin was among 11 detained under the now-repealed security law in 2001. Others nabbed in the dragnet included former PKR leaders Tian Chua and Badrul Amin Baharom, writer Hishammuddin Rais and former assemblyperson Saari Sungib.
At the time, the authorities, during Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s first tenure as prime minister, had claimed that the group was in possession of rocket launchers and had met with Thai separatist guerillas.
In June of that year, Malaysiakini published a letter penned by Chua from the Kamunting detention centre, in which he said: “The bombs, rocket launchers story was of course a lie, which I suppose the IGP himself does not believe.”
However, in 2014, the courts awarded five of them damages totalling RM4.5 million in relation to their detention.
In 2016, the Federal Court rejected the police and government’s appeal against the decision.
Numerous activists and politicians were present to pay their last respects to Badaruddin, who was also active in the human rights organisation Suaram.
Among them were Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim’s political aide Shamsul Iskandar Md Akin, former PSM chairperson Nasir Hashim, and fellow former detainees Chua, Hishammuddin and Badrul Amin.
During the reformasi movement which followed Mahathir’s decision to sack Anwar as deputy prime minister in 1998, Badaruddin was part of a Suaram taskforce that monitored and handled the arrests during the protests.
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