A demonstrator pleads with riot police during a protest against a law that allows detention without trial on Sunday in Kuala Lumpur.
On Saturday, riot police fired tear gas and water cannons during clashes with thousands of demonstrators who were protesting a long-standing law allowing detention without trial. The law -- known as the Internal Security Act -- enables Malaysian authorities to detain indefinitely individuals they consider to be security risks. In the past, al Qaeda-linked terrorists have been held under the provision.
Opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim and human-rights activists say the law also is used to stifle dissent in Malaysia, where the National Front coalition has ruled the country without interruption since independence from Britain in 1957. The law represents a "powerful threat to anybody criticizing the government," Mr. Anwar said in a phone interview.
Last year, the law was used to detain a blogger, a journalist and members of a Hindu-rights activist group.
On Saturday afternoon, as many as 10,000 protesters converged in the center of Malaysia's main city, intending to march to the national palace, where they planned to submit a petition to repeal the security law. Chants of "Reformasi" -- the Malaysian term for political reform -- echoed through the narrow streets of downtown Kuala Lumpur. Police fired tear gas to break up the protesters before the march began.
Police used batons to charge into groups of demonstrators, scuffling with many of them before they could deliver the petition. Analysts said the showdown could buoy Mr. Anwar's opposition alliance in its effort to win enough support to form a new government.
Some protesters fled to a nearby department store to evade arrest. A number of businesses pulled down their shutters as concerns about violence grew. Witnesses say they saw police dragging detainees into vans, sometimes kicking and screaming. Inspector General of Police Musa Haji Hassan said in a statement Saturday that police arrested 310 protesters because the rally hadn't been granted a permit.
The number of detainees was revised up to 438. By late Sunday, 39 protesters remained in custody, an opposition lawyer told the Associated Press.
Mr. Anwar, the 61-year-old opposition leader, said the police response to the demonstration indicated that the government is trying to clamp down on growing distrust in the way Malaysia's political leaders use colonial-era laws such as the Internal Security Act.
State media reported that Prime Minister Najib Razak said the protesters had been warned not to assemble, and said he had received many complaints about traffic disruptions in the area. Mr. Najib said he would leave it to the police to determine what to do with the people detained during the protest.
In the past, he has pledged to consider amending the Internal Security Act.
Other government officials and political activists have said the law is needed to combat terrorism and maintain social order in the nation of 27 million, which includes large ethnic-Chinese and -Indian minorities, as well as the majority Muslim Malay population.
Political analysts said Saturday's crackdown could give Mr. Anwar and his fragile opposition alliance a boost at a time when Mr. Najib has been gaining public approval. The prime minister's approval rating in a recent opinion poll climbed to 65% in July from 45% in May.
James Chin, a political-science professor at the Malaysian campus of Australia's Monash University, said that despite those gains, the rally was intended to "send a strong signal to the rest of the world that nothing has changed in Malaysia" in terms of human rights in recent years.
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