Through these laws governments give themselves and their agents the authority to implement acts which in normal circumstances would be illegal.

Examples:

Sri Lanka
The Government gave authority to its law enforcement officers to commit extra-judicial killings by removing laws relating to autopsies, and reporting of all suspicious deaths to courts. The result in the South alone was an official figure of 30,000 disappearances and large numbers in the North too.

Malaysia
Illegal arrests, detentions and unfair trials under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Since the enactment of the ISA in 1960, thousands of people, including trade unionists, student leders, labour activists, politicians, academicians, NGO activitsts and members of religious groups, have been arrested and detained without trial for indefinite periods. The ISA provides for "preventive" detention without charge or trial, solely on basis of the opinion of the Minister for Home Affairs that the detention is necessary in order to safeguard the security of the nation. Former detainees have reported that they have been tortured, especially in the first 60 days of solitary confinement and incommunicado detention in a police cell, when they are pressured to admit to the alleged crimes.

Indonesia
Arrests, Detentions, Torture and extra-judicial killings are still the order of the day in some parts of Indonesia. Especially in Aceh, where tens of thousands of people have been disappeared and/or tortured and
killed with absolute impunity.

In March President Wahid abolished the Agency for Coordination of Assistance for the Consolidation
of National Security (BAKORSTANAS), which had operated outside the legal code and had wide discretion
to detain and interrogate persons who were perceived as threats to national security. There are no reliable data
on the number of arbitrary arrests or detentions without trial, particularly in Aceh and Irian Jaya, but there is ample evidence that arbitrary arrests and detention without trial are employed systematically in Aceh. Most countries in Asia have some form of National Security Law, giving the government special powers under certain conditions.

Q. What about your own country?
1. Does your country have such national security laws? (they could be called 'Anti-terrorism', 'Antisubversion' or 'Anti-sedition' laws)
2. How have they been used in recent times?
3. Is there opposition to these laws in your country? And by whom?
4. What is being done?