Kazi Mahmood, IOL South East Asia Correspondent

JAKARTA, April 15 (Islam Online) - Jailed ex-deputy premier of Malaysia Anwar Ibrahim is staging a hunger strike, said his lawyer Sankara Nair on Monday during a press conference at his office in Kuala Lumpur.

Ibrahim has joined the strike in solidarity with the six Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees, who are holding a similar strike at the Kamunting Detention Center in Perak.

Nair said the former deputy premier, who is serving a six-year prison term for corruption charges at the Sungai Buloh prison doubled with a 9 year sentence for Sodomy, started his strike on Sunday last.

Ibrahim is protesting the unjust and unlawful detention of the six politicians under the draconian ISA and is demanding for their immediate release.

Meanwhile, authorities at the Kamunting Detention Center have come under heavy fire from the families of six ISA detainees for alleged maltreatment of the detainees since they started a hunger strike last week to seek their release.

The authorities had allegedly disregarded a medical expert’s order to release one of them, Dr. Badrulamin Bahron, who was said to be "seriously ill", for treatment.

The families also slammed hospital officials who had attended to the detainees for not revealing the medical records of the hunger strikers and urged them to be “neutral and fair”.

The six were arrested a year ago, they are National Justice Party (NJP) leaders Badrulamin Bahron, Tian Chua, Mohamed Ezam Mohamed Nor, Saari Sungib, Lokman Noor Adam and malaysiakini columnist-cum-filmmaker Hishamuddin Rais.

They have resolved to go on total hunger strike and stop consuming water if Bahron is not sent to the hospital.

The six have been on a hunger strike since April 10 to mark the first anniversary of their arrest under the ISA. They are demanding that they be freed or charged in court for their alleged crime of plotting to overthrow the government via militant means.

They rejected these accusations, claiming political motives for their arrests. The Malaysian government however insists it has sufficient proof to hold the detainees for another one year or more.

Under the ISA, the authorities have the right to detain a person for 60 days without trial. Prior to investigations, the authorities can also send the detainee to Kamunting, called the “Malaysian Goolag” by opponents, for another two years.

Meanwhile, the Abolish ISA Movement (GMI) said the 15 people, who have been on a hunger strike outside the Party Islam Se Malaysia (PAS) headquarters in Selangor since last Wednesday, were experiencing effects of starvation.