[Tlc] T-Internal Security Bill

[justinm at ucr.edu]

Dear All,

Forwarded with permission from Christopher Baker. 

Thank you,
justin

For anyone interested, attached is an English translation of 
the Internal Security Bill, approved in principle by the 
Cabinet and now under scrutiny by the Council of State. 
Important points are: 
 

1. The bill appears to create an institution or revive an 
old one (ISOC). That‘s an illusion. What it does is give 
lots of extra powers to the army, especially to the army 
chief. 

In the past, the head of ISOC was a separate post with its 
own secretariat and organization. In this bill, the army 
chief becomes head of ISOC, his chief of staff heads the 
secretariat, the regional army chiefs head the branches. The 
whole point of the bill is to give more powers to the army 
and especially the army chief. 

 

2 The power are considerable. Look especially at Sections 25 
and 26.

Section 25 is a subset of the State of Emergency Decree, cut-
and-pasted in here. These powers are supposed to be used 
only in something like an emergency. Section 26 does not 
have even that condition. These powers can be used all the 
time. Most need no warrant, and no reporting. 

 

3. There is almost no check or monitor on the use of these 
powers. The ISOC head reports to the PM, but there is no 
mechanism for oversight. The regional and provincial 
committees are nominally given a monitoring role, but they 
are all appointed by the army anyway. 

 

4. The officials using these powers are insulated from any 
liability or prosecution, see sections 36 and 37. Again, 
these clauses are scissored out of the State of Emergency 
Decree.

 

 

Chris


______________
Dr. Justin McDaniel
Dept. of Religious Studies
2617 Humanities Building
University of California, Riverside
Riverside, CA 92521
951-827-4530
justinm at ucr.edu
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: internalsecurityactdrafttranslation5july07[1].pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 37804 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://lists.ucr.edu/pipermail/tlc/attachments/20070709/495888e4/internalsecurityactdrafttranslation5july071-0001.pdf