Tenaganita wants govt to end custodial deaths after 150 fatalities last year

 

Tenaganita is urging the government to put a stop to custodial deaths after it was revealed that 150 people died last year while in the custody of the Immigration Department.

Tenaganita executive director Glorene A Das believed the number, which was revealed by the Home Ministry in a parliamentary reply to Chow Yu Hui (Pakatan Harapan-Raub) recently, needs to be investigated.

The reply stated that from January 2022 to December 2022, a total of 150 foreigners died in custody, with 121 being adult males, 25 adult females, five male children and two female children. It should be noted that this adds up to 153 deaths, not 150 as first mentioned in the reply.

"Tenaganita is faced with issues surrounding arrest, detention and violence in detention centres and prisons daily,” Das said.

She added that torture, punishment and inhumane conditions in these centres have been well documented.

She also cited the struggle of Tenaganita co-founder, the late Dr Irene Fernandez, who submitted a memorandum to the government in 1996 on the conditions of detention camps in Malaysia but met with arrest and was dragged to courts for 18 years, supposedly for maliciously publishing false news.

"However, here we are once again, in 2023, addressing the same issues, yet there is no accountability," Das said.

Right time for reforms

With the new government, she said it is obvious that the time is right to put in place clear public policies, instruments, frameworks and monitoring mechanisms for long overdue reforms of detention centres, to ensure that the human rights of detainees are respected.

Tenaganita executive director Glorene A Das

"More so with a prime minister who knows the conditions and situations in prison - he should and must push for these changes.

"We cannot just let these deaths be just a number presented in the Parliament, simply because a majority of them are migrants, asylum seekers, stateless and refugees whose loss of life can slip under the radar.

"It must be investigated and the public, as taxpayers, need to know who is responsible for the deaths," she said.

Among the victims was Thomas Orhios Ewansiha, the Nigerian who died at the Bukit Jalil immigration depot on July 9, 2019.

His family claimed unlawful arrest, abusive treatment and neglect but failed in their legal bid to hold immigration authorities responsible for his death after the Coroner’s Court ruled that he died of natural causes.

Aside from deaths in immigration custody, the reply from the Home Ministry also stated that there were 11 deaths in police lockups last year - nine Malays, one Chinese and one foreigner.

The age range of prisoners who died in the lockup involved four people aged between 30 and 39 years; three people aged between 40 and 49 years, three people aged between 50 and 59 years and two people aged between 60 to 69 years.

Last year, the Prison Department also recorded nine deaths of male prisoners. Of that number, four people were Malays; three were Chinese; one was Indian, and one was Vietnamese. - Mkini