MALAYSIA: Abrupt End to Abuse Inquiry Slammed

By Baradan Kuppusamy Reprint | | Print |

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 2005 (IPS) - A public inquiry called after angry public reaction to a leaked 70-second video clip showing police abusing a naked woman inside a lock-up ended hastily after just five days of hearing last week, leaving many questions unanswered.

The public had expected a hard-nosed, in-depth probe that would get to the bottom of what the Malaysian media has dubbed the “squat-gate” scandal – describing an old police practice where detained persons are stripped naked and made to hold their ears and repeatedly squat or do sit-ups, ostensibly to expel objects hidden in the anus or vagina.

But the probe into one of the worst cases of police abuse in recent history has been described as superficial by opposition politicians, human rights activists and the Bar Council. They want the panel, headed by a respected retired chief of judges, to reconvene and probe deeper into the police practice of forcing women to strip naked and perform squats.

The critics are calling for an in-depth probe of police procedures, ways to check police abuse and protect privacy. They also want the inquiry panel to recommend how to protect and uphold the human rights of detained persons.

“It is a matter of grave concern that the Commission of Inquiry ignored the larger pattern of police disrespect of human rights of detainees in custody. The latest abuse is only the tip of an iceberg of police abuses of detainees in custody,” opposition leader Lim Kit Siang told IPS.

Complains of abuse by police have been steadily on the rise but few are investigated and almost no officer has been prosecuted for abuses in an open court. The last such trial was when the police chief himself was found guilty in 2000 of assaulting former deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

An outcry earlier this year over the death of detainees in police custody forced the attorney general to issue an order requiring an inquest for each custody death. Previously such inquiries were selective.

Two weeks before the video clip surfaced, four female Chinese nationals alleged that they were arrested, stripped naked, forced to do ear-squats and later robbed of their cash. No one has been prosecuted over this incident, which made headlines.

While civil society is anxious to check police abuse, government officials are attempting to paint the issue as one of smearing the country’s reputation. They are angry with Teresa Kok, an ethnic Chinese Malaysian and member of the opposition Democratic Action Party (DAP) for making the video clip public.

“The video clip shows Malaysians in graphic detail how brutal our police can be,” Kok told IPS. “It shows what happens in police stations every day.”

The DAP has announced it will “vigorously” defend Kok, not only in court if she is charged but also in parliament and in a nationwide public campaign.

Malaysians are already clamouring for a ban on police powers to strip-search detainees.

At the public inquiry, senior police officers defended the practice saying it is as old as the police force and effective in expelling objects hidden in detainees’ orifices. “It is better then inserting a finger or an apparatus in the anus or vagina to retrieve objects,” police prosecutor Mr Suhaimi Ibrahim told the inquiry panel.

Such statements have only fuelled public anger.

“The practice is an insult to humanity and violates all civilised norms of behaviour,” said Zuraida Kamaruddin, deputy head of the women’s wing of the opposition National Justice Party. A dozen NGOs and feminist organisations agree and have issued a joint statement demanding the practice be banned.

“It must end immediately,” Zuraida told IPS.

“It is a serious violation of human rights, an insult to humanity and violates all Islamic laws,” said Azizah Khatib, head of the women’s wing of another opposition group, the Pan Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS). “It is a form of sexual abuse.”

Even the government linked ‘New Straits Times’ daily voiced concerns in an editorial last week.

“What is upsetting is the humiliation and degradation caused by certain police methodsàand whether these practices are consonant with human rights and the common codes of decency,” the newspaper said.

Ordinary Malaysians are also speaking up in scores of letters to newspapers and in Internet chat rooms, condemning the police and demanding the government end the practice.

“Over time the practice has become a tool for police to ogle at naked women,” said one writer.

“It is a form of torture when one is compelled to do it naked,” said another writer to ‘Malaysiakini’, an independent Internet news site. “The procedure cannot be defended much less continued.”

Doctors are divided over whether the procedure works. One who testified before the panel said it was an effective way to expel hidden objects, especially drugs.

Other doctors not called by the panel dispute that opinion.

The Bar Council is unhappy that the inquiry did not probe deeper into the pattern of persistent abuses that has been formed over many years. Council President Yeo Yang Poh said the panel should have invited more witness, experts and victims to give evidence.

“There is no legal basis for strip searches in Malaysia and, secondly, the manner in which it is now done violates even existing laws such as section 19 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which states that any search must be performed ‘with strict regard to decency’,” added Yeo.

“The many complaints show that the purported body searches are not meant for the said purpose but to humiliate, dehumanise and show that the detainee is powerless – completely naked in front of a stranger even if one from the same sex.”

One solution, rights activists say, is to immediately set up an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission. It was a measure recommended by another inquiry panel earlier this year, which suggested 127 measures, few of which have been implemented.

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