PARLIAMENT | Home Minister Saifuddin Nasution Ismail today doubled down on his rebuttal of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report on torture in immigration detention centres.
He said the Immigration Department conducts checks to ensure that United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card holders are not among those detained.
He explained that refugees with UNHCR cards were only detained if they committed an offence.
“The important thing is to give an explanation.“I thank the PSC (Parliamentary Special Select Committee on Human Rights, Election, and Institutional Reform) for also giving room to the Immigration Department to do rebuttals and we will cooperate with the hope that this more credible version from us will be able to be announced to neutralise all these accusations,” he said in the Dewan Rakyat today.
Saifuddin was referring to a report HRW released last Wednesday (March 5), which claimed that ill-treatment and inadequate medical care have led to hundreds of deaths in immigration detention centres.
The report, titled “We Can’t See The Sun, Malaysia’s Arbitrary Detention of Migrants and Refugees”, detailed how officers mete out punishments for noise, smoking, asking questions or raising concerns about the conditions, talking to the adjacent block, fighting, or for having cell phones or other reasons.
Of the 23 migrants and refugees interviewed by HRW, 15 reported being assaulted and all have witnessed beatings while in immigration detention.
Every interviewee also said they faced some form of punishment during their detention.
‘Detention centres not overcrowded’
Meanwhile, Saifuddin denied claims that the detention centres were overcrowded, saying there were only 13,635 detainees while the capacity of the 20 depots nationwide was for 20,650 people.
“Undercapacity, so the HRW report is fully rejected. Let the numbers speak for themselves.
“Is it overcrowded? The answer is no,” he said.
He also told Bagan MP Lim Guan Eng that detainees were given food five times a day at the cost of RM80 million per year.
“That is taxpayers’ money. And yet a report like this can come out saying that (detainees were) tortured until they died.
“This is very irresponsible,” he said.
He also repeated his assertion that HRW was unable to furnish evidence of the mistreatment of detainees by immigration officers.
Yesterday, Saifuddin said he gave the report the benefit of the doubt as there may have been issues overlooked by his ministry.
He said that the report was merely hearsay at this point. - Mkini
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