| Prisoner-caning video clip whips up outcry | | |
| Thursday, 02 August 2007, 06:54am | |
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"We are against the death penalty and corporal punishment. It's against all international human rights norms and the various conventions on torture," council president Ambiga Sreenevasan told The Associated Press. "It's inhumane and degrading." |
| Suhakam reiterates call for abolishment of capital punishment on children |  |  |
| Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 05:53pm | |
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Abu Talib was asked whether Suhakam was still recommending to the government to abolish capital punishment for children following a recent court decision on a 17-year-old-boy who was convicted of murder but freed because there was no provision for punishment for such offence in the Child Act. |
Chin Human Rights Organization
Tel: +1.510.981.1417
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Alexander
Amyalex_thailand@yahoo.com
Tel: +66.85.23.02.609
MORE CHIN REFUGEES ROUNDED UP IN
By: Amy Alexander
Almost half of those arrested yesterday morning are recognized refugees with valid UNHCR documents. Many are in the final stages of a long process to be resettled to a third country, with some scheduled to depart within the next couple weeks. Instead of boarding an airplane to begin a new life abroad, they now face the possibility of being loaded onto a lorry bound for the Thai border.
The raid began in the early hours of the morning yesterday in
The raid was conducted by
Despite continued condemnation by members of the international community and human rights organizations, yesterday’s raid is one of a mounting number of recently conducted raids targeting the refugee and undocumented migrant community in
Hundreds of thousands of Chins have been forced to leave their homes in
For more information on the Chin and their situation in
KUALA LUMPUR: We are punishing them for entering the country illegally.
But it is costing us almost RM80 million to keep foreigners in prison for just a few months.
| July 23, 2007 12:26 PM |
Illegal Immigrant Detention Centres Told To Increase Capacity
KUALA LUMPUR, July 23 (Bernama) -- All depots and temporary detention camps for illegal immigrants have been told to increase their capacity to accommodate more detainees.
Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak said the directive was issued by the Cabinet last week after discussing the issue of worsening over-crowding at these centres.
Najib who was met by reporters at the parliament lobby here Monday, was asked to comment on the disclosure by Immigration Department enforcement director Datuk Ishak Mohamed yesterday that more than 300,000 foreigners were staying in this country illegally or had violated their work permits.
"Therefore, the Cabinet had asked that the detention depots and camps be expanded to accommodate these foreign illegals and other immigration offenders."
He said additional allocations were being provided for the purpose.
Najib added that at the moment it was not possible to mount a massive operation against foreign illegals as there were not enough detention centres to accommodate them before they be repatriated.
-- BERNAMA
Chin Peng asked to produce papers for action against govt
SHAH ALAM: Former communist leader Chin Peng will have to produce his birth certificate and citizenship papers before he could proceed with his legal action against the Malaysian government, the High Court ruled.
“Chin Peng’s main application was made based on the claim that he is a Malaysian.
“Therefore, it is relevant and important for him to produce his birth certificate and citizenship papers,” ruled High Court judge Justice Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah.
A lawyer for the 84-year-old former leader of the Communist Party of Malaysia (CPM), Darshan Singh Khaira, said the ruling was as good as throwing Chin Peng’s case out of court because those documents had been seized by the government a long time ago.
“He cannot produce the documents anymore. The court should allow him to prove his citizenship through his relatives or acquaintances here.
“One should also look at the treaty signed between the CPM and the Government in December 1989, where some of the former CPM leaders’ names were mentioned,” he said.
Lead counsel Raja Aziz Addruse said they would be appealing against the ruling.
Darshan Singh said he hoped that the appeal could be heard early such as before this year’s Independence Day celebration.
Chin Peng, whose real name is Ong Boon Hua, currently resides in Thailand.
In the originating summons filed on March 4, 2005, the octogenarian asked for a declaration that he and other CPM members be allowed to enter and live in this country.
Apart from the government, he named the home affairs minister, the inspector-general of police and the armed forces chief as defendants.
In June, Chin Peng withdrew two side applications he had filed namely his bid to attend the hearing of his main action and his application to compel the government to provide a copy of his birth certificate and other related identification documents.
The main reason cited was that Chin Peng did not want to prolong the matter.
| Asean unanimous to setting up human rights body | | |
| Tuesday, 31 July 2007, 08:12am | |
| ©The Star (Used by permission) |
|
We now have video footage of a genuine judicial punishment session in Malaysia, including several complete canings, ranging from a couple of one-stroke punishments to one of twenty strokes. The video, total running time 22 minutes, is divided into two parts. It was made, probably in 2004, at Seremban prison, not far from Kuala Lumpur. It gives us a comprehensive, uncensored view of JCP being administered in one session to a batch of adult offenders on a production-line basis. For the first time we are given a ringside seat at a dramatic spectacle in which a series of convicted men are made to undergo salutary retribution for their crimes, methodically delivered via their bared buttocks, with the full panoply of the State. material shocking. It is not for the squeamish. You may not want to watch these films if you don't approve of severe corporal punishment for ruthless, violent, adult male criminals. It is your choice. The film opens with a sign reading "Caning Station, Seremban Prison" (Tempat Menjalani Hukuman Rotan Penjara Seremban). We then see prisoners waiting to be caned and being examined by the doctor. The caning operative is shown warming up with a few practice strokes. Each prisoner to be caned is made to wear a sort of pinafore that covers the front but not the rear of his midriff, permitting modesty to be maintained in front while leaving his backside bare. Thus attired, he is brought out to stand in front of the officer in charge, who orders him to state his name and his prisoner number. The OIC then says that his court sentence was X years in prison and Y strokes of the cane. In a number of cases, the OIC asks the prisoner if he understands ("Paham?"), to which all prisoners reply in the affirmative, sometimes adding "Sir" (Tuan). The OIC then says "So this morning we are going to give you X strokes of the cane" (jadi pagi ini kita akan sebat kamu dengan 13 kali sebatan). The prisoner is then taken to the frame and secured to it, and the special buttock-framing torso protection shield is fitted on. When all is ready, another officer, standing at the wall to the right of the frame, shouts out "Punishment of X strokes of the cane", and then calls out the number of each stroke before it is inflicted, just as described in the account by Robert Symes. As also in his description, the session takes place in an open-air compound. The strokes are inflicted at intervals of about 15 seconds. On each stroke, the rotan slices into the prisoner's backside. A raw weal flashes up instantly. Very evident in this film is what is clearly the standard Malaysian practice of having one or more officers holding the prisoner's head from behind the A-frame, just as shown in all the dummy demonstration pictures and stills from filmed reconstructions that we have seen, as well as in the still photo that is almost certainly of a real Malaysian caning in an earlier period before the one-piece torso shield was developed.
The prisoners shown come from all Malaysia's three main races, Malay, Chinese and Indian (identifiable when their names are read out). Oddly, their names have been left on the soundtrack although their visual identity has been obscured. There is no mention in the interviews of what crimes the men committed, or what their ages are. The first four punishments are of only one or two strokes each. This is a typical sentence for relatively minor and non-violent offences such as illegal immigration. Next comes a 13-stroke caning for a Chinese prisoner, which here is split over the first and second parts of the film. He takes his punishment remarkably stoically, hardly moving or making a noise. In the rest of the second clip we see a convict undergoing a rare 20 strokes of the rotan in full. He is a Malay, Azman bin Arsyad. When the OIC tells him that he is now going to get his whipping, the prisoner responds "Thank you, Sir". This man's very heavy punishment takes over five minutes to administer, not counting his interview with the officer in charge immediately beforehand. It appears to be treated even by the prison staff, who are doing this job every week, as a bit of a special event. A new team of officers has taken over. I have the impression that each stroke of this caning is being inflicted with even greater force than for any of the earlier ones. At all events, it is a gruesome sight. This prisoner writhes and struggles, and he shouts quite a bit, including "Allahu Akbar" ("God is great"). By the end of the process his posterior is bleeding freely. But bear in mind that to receive such a sentence he will most likely have committed a truly wicked crime such as, perhaps, the rape of young children. Despite the condition he is in at the end, he manages to limp stiffly back into the building afterwards. There are also remarkable scenes in the prison hospital showing a dozen or so freshly-caned criminals, each lying face down on a bed to receive medical attention. This must mean that there were other canings at the same day's session that were not included in this film. We see close-ups of several of the wounded posteriors. These already look less horrific after receiving first aid than they did immediately at the end of the punishment.
At any rate, it has been claimed anecdotally that films such as this are occasionally shown to older students and/or to juvenile offenders as a warning in Malaysia, as they are known to be in Singapore. And this June 2005 news item reports that "a video of prisoners being whipped" was shown to visitors to an exhibition in Sabah, and that the video had been approved by the Ministry of Home Affairs to deter the public from criminality. Conceivably this was regarded as a substitute for doing the actual flogging in public, which had been mooted in early 2004 for child-rapists, but not proceeded with. (There has never been public JCP in Malaysia or Singapore, or at least not in modern times.) |
By Jaspal Singh
Seventeen Indonesians were given the maximum six strokes of the rotan each by the magistrate’s court today for entering the country without valid documents. They were also each sentenced to two weeks in jail after pleading guilty to the offence.
Edi, 28, Damik, 27, Yong, 34, Idol, 23, Yang, 20, Marse, 25, Rauz @ Franz, 20, Perdi, 25, Sius, 20, Tius, 26, Doni, 26, Makse, 21, Martinus, 25, Hila, 28, Fitor, 26, Natan Sifa, 28, and Martinuz @ Marcy, 28, were arrested last Nov 28 during Ops Tegas in the Kampar, Sungai Siput and Perak Tengah districts.
Magistrate Mohd Mazran Mohd Mazlan said the punishment would serve as a reminder to them not to treat the laws of this country lightly.
"I cannot understand why you have to give RM1,500 to RM3,000 to boat skippers to bring you to the shores of this country illegally when there are legal ways of coming here," he said.
"You could have used the same money to pay authorised agencies to bring you here with proper documents. At least you would not be caught for being here illegally even if you were unable to earn enough to send back home," he said, agreeing with Immigration Department prosecuting officer Khairul Anuar's submission that entering the country without valid documents is a serious offence.
Earlier this week, the special Sessions Court at the Langkap Detention Depot, near here, became the first in the country to impose the maximum six strokes of the rotan on seven Indonesians who entered the country illegally.
© Copyright 2007 The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad. All rights reserved.
TELUK INTAN: The maximum six strokes of the rotan. That was the punishment meted out by a special Sessions Court on seven Indonesians who entered the country without valid documents. First-time offenders Sahwi, 31, Yusman, 23, Hanafi Aman, 27, Iksan Abubakar, 32, Mohd Tohir Ratnam, 46, Samino Kadir, 31, and Girianto, 25, who pleaded guilty to the offence, were also sentenced to jail terms of between 10 and 14 months each at Tapah prison.
Judge Rashidah Chik concurred with the submission by Perak Immigration Department prosecuting officer Khairul Anwar that the only way to effectively deter them and other foreigners from illegally entering the country was to impose the maximum strokes of the rotan.
Section 6(3) of the Immigration Act 1959/63 provides for either a fine of up to RM10,000 or imprisonment not exceeding five years and whipping of not more than six strokes.
The special court was set at the Langkap Detention Depot near here.
Arrested during "Ops Tegas" last Dec 19 in various parts of the state, Khairul said the seven men had been in the country for between one and two years.
He urged the court to impose the maximum sentence of whipping in view of public interest as well as sovereignty of the laws of the land.
"Parliament amended Section 6(3) in 2002 and made whipping a mandatory punishment. The amendment reflects the seriousness of the problem relating to illegal immigration in Malaysia."
He submitted that no leniency should be shown to the offenders although they pleaded guilty and were first-time offenders.
Four others who stayed in the country illegally for less than a year were given four strokes of the rotan and eight months’ jail.
© Copyright 2007 The New Straits Times Press (M) Berhad. All rights reserved.
Fast forward: Detainees at the Langkap Immigration Detention Depot waiting for their cases to be heard outside the newly opened dedicated Sessions Court at the depot in Teluk Intan.
(Picture and caption from The Star, 16 January 2007)
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The instant the last stroke is laid on, the officer shouts "habis" ("finished"). In one case we can hear one of the attendants positioned closest to the prisoner at the frame telling him to "take a breath, take a breath" ("tarik nafas").
Why was this film made? There can be little doubt that it is the same footage as that referred to in 
