1996 Annual Report for Malaysia
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT 1996(This document covers the period from 1.1.95 to 31.12.95)
MALAYSIA
Six political prisoners were held without trial under the Internal Security Act (isa). An opposition member of parliament was charged under the Sedition Act for making political comments concerning the judiciary. Eleven police officers were found criminally responsible for the death in custody of a criminal suspect. Caning continued to be inflicted for a range of crimes. It was reported that 46 people had died in detention camps for illegal immigrants since 1993. At least 11 people were sentenced to death and at least two people were executed.
The ruling Barisan Nasional, National Front, coalition headed by Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections in April.
In December 1994 parliament passed the Criminal Procedure Code (Amendment) Bill, abolishing trial by jury in death penalty cases. The Bill also introduced caning for economic crimes including embezzlement, tax fraud and bribery. In April the government was reported to be studying a proposal to introduce a mandatory death sentence for causing the death of children through abuse.
In May the government threatened to take action under the isa against members of the opposition Parti Islam Sa-Malaysia (pas), Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party, found to be creating religious tensions or spreading ''deviationist'' Islamic teachings.
The isa allows the police to arrest and detain any person suspected of threatening national security for up to 60 days of investigation, after which the Minister of Home Affairs can order detention without charge or trial for renewable periods of two years. In August the government rejected calls by opposition parties and by the Bar Council to repeal the isa following a full review. However, the government stated that it was considering shortening periods of detention from two years to between six months and one year. No such decision had been announced by the end of the year.
Six political prisoners were among at least 25 people held without trial under the isa in the Kamunting detention centre near Taiping, in Perak state, in late 1994. The six had been detained since 1989 for allegedly having belonged to the Communist Party of Malaya (see Amnesty International Report 1995). They were not reported to have been released by the end of the year. Others reportedly held under the isa included one person arrested for allegedly selling state secrets and at least 19 others accused of falsifying identity and travel documents. More than 46 others accused of involvement in forging identity documents were arrested in Sabah during the year. Restriction orders imposed under the isa on seven leaders of the Al Arqam religious group remained in force (see Amnesty International Report 1995).
In February police arrested Lim Guan Eng, a member of parliament for the opposition Democratic Action Party. He was charged under the Sedition Act with prompting ''disaffection with the administration of justice''. Lim Guan Eng had stated in January that the authorities had applied ''double standards'' during investigations into a statutory rape case allegedly involving a former Chief Minister of Malacca and a 15-year-old girl. In March Lim Guan Eng was also charged under the Printing Presses and Publications Act with publishing false information in relation to the case. Lim Guan Eng's trial was set for January 1996; if convicted he faced possible imprisonment and disqualification from parliament.
In November a judicial inquiry found 11 police officers criminally responsible for the death in May of a robbery suspect. The inquiry also ruled that the suspect had been illegally detained under the Emergency Ordinance. The Attorney-General ordered the prosecution of only two of the 11 officers.
Caning – which constitutes a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment – was inflicted as a supplement to imprisonment throughout the year. Over 40 crimes, including drugs offences, rape, kidnapping, attempted murder and robbery, are punishable by caning. In one case, teenager Tham Chuan Heng was sentenced in June to a five-and-a-half-year jail term and to 12 strokes of the cane for assaulting another boy and robbing him of his clothes.
In September the government appointed a visitors' panel to study conditions in camps for illegal immigrants after confirming reports that 46 detainees had died between 1993 and 1995 in such camps, apparently from malnutrition, beri-beri and other treatable diseases. Former detainees of the camps interviewed by the Malaysian human rights group Tenaganita reported a pattern of ill-treatment, including lack of adequate food and water, denial of medical treatment, assaults by guards (which allegedly led to the deaths of at least two migrant workers) and sexual abuse of female detainees. The visitors' panel had not reported by the end of the year. Police questioned Tenaganita's director in connection with possible criminal defamation charges linked to the group's research, and charged her with withholding evidence when she refused to hand over research documents. A Bangladeshi national who had assisted with the research was detained in November, despite disproving charges that his identity papers were false.
During the year at least 11 people were sentenced to death. They included Sarasvathi Pavideloo, who was convicted in March with Kurasagam Muthu of trafficking in more than five kilograms of cannabis. At least two people were executed. One had been convicted of drug-trafficking and the other of armed robbery. However, the real figure for executions was believed to be higher. At least 19 commutations of the death penalty were recorded. The majority were cases in which charges were reduced on appeal from trafficking in drugs (which carries a mandatory death sentence) to possession of drugs. In a further nine reported cases prisoners previously sentenced to death were released on appeal. In June the Federal Court was reported to have acquitted and released Ho Yoi Wah, who had been sentenced to death by the High Court in 1989 for drug-trafficking. In a rare move the King, Tuanku Ja'afar Abdul Rahman, granted clemency in January to Tan Kim Guan, a former taxi driver who had been sentenced to death in 1991.
Amnesty International asked the Inter-Parliamentary Union (ipu) to appeal to the Malaysian authorities to drop the charges against Lim Guan Eng. Amnesty International also urged the Ministry of Home Affairs to establish an impartial investigation into the deaths of illegal migrants in detention camps and to make its findings public. It also urged that all detainees be given adequate nutrition and medical care. Amnesty International also appealed to the authorities to commute all death sentences and to end the punishment of caning.
