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Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak will unveil plans on Thursday to ease curbs on civil liberties, an official source said, bowing to a key opposition demand as speculation over snap polls mounts.

Razak will announce long-awaited plans to amend the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows detention without trial, and relax press and assembly restrictions, a government official familiar with the plans told AFP.

Najib, whose government was widely criticized for forcefully quashing a July rally by the opposition and civil society groups for electoral reform, will make the announcements in an 8:45 p.m. (12:45 GMT) speech.

The ISA has long been a hot-button issue in Muslim-majority Malaysia, whose critics say it is abused by the long-ruling government of Najib’s party, the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO), to silence dissent.

“The prime minister wants to open up the space for discussion and remove archaic and irrelevant laws that serve to stifle and censor rather than encourage greater dialogue,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He gave no further specifics on the reform plans.

Opposition politicians and rights activists have long criticized ISA as outdated — it was enacted in 1960 as a bulwark against a failed communist insurgency — and ripe for abuse, and have called for its complete abolition.

Najib will also reveal changes to a publications law that leaves newspapers and periodicals vulnerable to having their licences revoked by the government, the source said.

Najib, who took office in 2009 vowing to review ISA, is due to call an election by 2013.

However, his administration has faced mounting questions recently over the July rally response, rising racial tensions in the multi-ethnic nation and an increasingly pessimistic economic outlook.

Najib’s speech is aimed at seizing back the political initiative, the official said.

The address is being held to mark the anniversary Friday of the 1963 union of peninsular Malaysia with the states of Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island.

Malaysia has been ruled since its 1957 independence by a coalition dominated by UMNO, but an invigorated opposition made historic gains in 2008 polls.

Agence France-Presse