The Emergency (Public Order and Crime Prevention) Ordinance, 1969 (Malay: Ordinan Darurat (Ketenteraman Awam dan Mencegah Jenayah), 1969), commonly abbreviated as the Emergency Ordinance (EO), was a Malaysian law whose most well-known provision allows for indefinite detention without trial.
[1] It had been regularly used to detain those deemed to be subversive by the government, and was in fact used far more frequently than the Internal Security Act.
Though figures for those detained under the EO were not released by the government, Human Rights Watch estimated there to be 712 such detainees in 2005.
[1] A recent use of the Emergency Ordinance was in June 2011, to detain indefinitely 6 members of Parti Sosialis Malaysia, including Sungai Siput Member of Parliament Dr. Michael Jeyakumar Devaraj, due to their support for the Bersih 2.0 rally for electoral reform.
When the EO6 were released on 29 July,[3] the first official KL People's Assembly meeting was postponed until the following Saturday, 6 August.