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RIGHTS-MALAYSIA: Campaign Against Indefinite Detention Picks Up

Baradan Kuppusamy

KUALA LUMPUR, Sep 5 2006 (IPS) - One day in December 2000 the world, as he knew it, came crashing down on restaurateur Mohamed Samsudin. He was picked up by police and detained without charges for the next three years.

“I was in a hotel room with some friends and we were waiting to pick up a consignment of goods when the police raided the hotel and arrested us,” Samsudin, 41, said, recalling the beginning of his nightmare.

Although Samsudin, an ethnic Indian, was freed three years later, his ordeal as a ‘criminal suspect’ has not ended. “I was victimised, held without trial and suffered intolerable pain in numerous filthy and overcrowded police lockups and prison camps,” he told IPS. ”I was confined with hardened criminals. The nightmare returns every night in my sleep,” he added.

“I can never erase this painful episode in my life,” said Samsudin who is now suing the Malaysian police and government for wrongful arrest and confinement and violation of fundamental rights and compensation for suffering during detention. Like hundreds of other ‘criminal suspects’ Samsudin was arrested under a 1969 emergency ordinance (EO) which allows the police to indefinitely detain people without charge or trial.

In 2003, Samsudin was released as suddenly as he was arrested. There were no explanations offered, no apology for the arrest or the long wrongful confinement.

A new 35-page report, released in August by Human Rights Watch (HRW) titled ‘Convicted before Trial: Indefinite Detention under Malaysia’s Emergency Ordinance’, documents the experiences of people like Samsudin.

It documents how the Malaysian government has detained people indefinitely without charge or trial, subjected them to beatings and ill treatment while in detention, and rearrested them after court-ordered release. It is a searing condemnation of detention without trial.

Thousands of Malaysians – on mere police suspicion – have been arrested, held in lock ups, beaten and later confined in the Simpang Rengam detention camp in southern Johore state. Not only are such detainees presumed guilty by the government, but they are also tried and convicted in the press, the report said.

Malaysia’s government-controlled newspapers often refer to the detainees as ‘thugs’ and ‘gangsters’ and report as though government allegations are proven facts.

Most of the detainees are from poor, working class backgrounds who have been victimised by what HRW describes as an ‘ancient, primitive and completely unacceptable’ law.

”It is important for Malaysians to understand that Samsudin suffered so much on mere suspicion. He was never charged, brought to trial or found guilty,” said Sahr Muhammed Ally, a researcher at the Asia division of HRW and author of the report.

Helped by human rights activists, the victims of the EO are finally speaking up. They are demanding that the government repeal the law, release all detainees and rely solely on the Criminal Procedure Code and Penal Code to investigate crime, charge suspects and let the courts determine guilt or innocence.

“This is the proper and civilised way of conducting criminal justice – arresting and incarcerating on mere suspicion is primitive and sets Malaysia back into the stone age,” said rights activist S. Arulchelvam.

The EO was first drafted to quell the spread of violence and arson following the 1969 racial riots. However, it is now used as a crime prevention tool against ‘criminal suspects’ to detain them. Annually, about 700 ‘criminal suspects’ are held indefinitely under the EO, the report said. The detention can either be extended or the “suspects” released after “rehabilitation”. One person is currently into his 8th year of detention.

“Sadly, the riots that produced the EO law are long over but the emergency proclamation has not been rescinded and is frequently used against people on mere suspicion,” said Yap Swee Send, executive director of SUARAM, a leading human rights NGO.

“Instead of proper investigation and prosecution, police use the easy way out and lock up people without trial,” Yap told IPS. “Even after release there is no guarantee that they will not be rearrested and detained again. This law is totally unjust and it must be repealed.”

Worse, the detainees cannot challenge their detentions in court except on procedural grounds and when a detainee is freed by the court – through habeas corpus application – police lie in wait outside the court to re-arrest the person.

”It is a fundamental principle that guilt or innocence must be decided by an independent court, not by executive fiat,” said Ally. ‘’Malaysia must repeal the EO and use the normal criminal law to try suspected criminals,” she said.

Last year, the government-appointed Royal Commission to Enhance the Royal Malaysia Police recommended repeal of the EO. The commission concluded that the EO had ”outlived its purpose and violated the right to liberty”. Despite that recommendation the Malaysian government has given no indication yet that it will repeal this draconian law. But pressure – both domestic and international – is now building up against the draconian law and its continued use by the government.