The government has been urged to stop detaining migrants and refugees if it wants to encourage these groups to come forward for Covid-19 vaccinations.
The call comes amidst the Immigration Department's move to deport 1,086 Myanmar nationals despite a court ordering the exercise to be halted.
Asked about the impact of mass deportations, Amnesty International Malaysia executive director Katrina Jolene Maliamauv said it had elevated the "state of fear" among migrant communities.
"If you were at risk of being arrested and detained when you went to seek medical treatment or get vaccinated, would you seek medical treatment and get vaccinated? [...]
"People are terrified, and they are terrified because of what we do - arrest them, detain them and threaten them," she said.
Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Khairy Jamaluddin recently said that Putrajaya wanted to work with international agencies and NGOs to "build trust" among refugees and other communities in the government's vaccination drive.
He had assured that the authorities would not detain those who came forward to be inoculated.
Katrina pointed to the mass raids last May that saw hundreds of undocumented migrants living in locked-down areas arrested. Immigration director-general Khairul Dzaimee Daud said that the migrants deported yesterday had been arrested in 2020.
These arrests were despite the government's assurance that none would be arrested if they came forward for Covid-19 tests.
Katrina thus called for a stop to harsh migrant control measures.
"So any ministry out there saying we are going to vaccinate (migrants and refugees) [...] we have to stop these detentions, and we have to stop these arrests.
"(We must) forefront human rights, and that applies to migrants and refugees - documented or not," she stressed.
Putrajaya is offering Covid-19 vaccinations to all who register for them, regardless of citizenship status.
This is part of its goal to achieve herd immunity, which requires at least 70 percent of the population to be vaccinated.
Herd immunity is supposed to slow the spread of Covid-19 and protect those who have not been vaccinated. - Mkini
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