Malaysia: Another Concern for Human Rights

Eyewitnesses Tell of Rela Madness, Brutality

3/1/2006

Andrew Ong
Malaysiakini

For weeks, businessman M Michael and his friends have been providing food and water to a large group of Indian nationals camping in front of the Indian High Commission along Jalan Duta in Kuala Lumpur.

The group of about 70 men claim that they were shortchanged by their employers and wanted the High Commission to look into their plight.

At about 10.30pm last night, Michael and his friends prepared hot tea and coffee for the group, but unfortunately, the latter didn’t get to enjoy it.

Moments after Michael arrived outside the High Commission, one Perodua Kembara bearing a ‘Ikatan Relawan’ logo and three trucks bearing the Home Ministry’s logo appeared at the scene.

What followed was pure chaos.

“My friends and I watched in horror as more than 20 Rela personnel rushed out of the trucks and started beating up the Indian nationals for no reason,” a shaken Michael said when contacted.

The Indian nationals were chased, kicked and beaten, said Michael, a businessman who does social work part-time for MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Michael Chong.

“We were all too shocked to react. I heard of Rela abusing their powers before, but to see it for the first hand was scary. I am on medical leave today because my doctor has diagnosed me with high blood pressure after the incident,” he adds.

Pleas ignored

His friend who was with him, SKK Naidu, when contacted, said that everything happened very fast. While some of the victims managed to escape, those who were subdued by the Rela officers were pushed in one by one into the trucks.

“There were about 60 of them, yet they were squeezed into two trucks. One person was also handcuffed,” said Naidu.

He said the Rela personnel also took away the belongings of the Indian nationals and loaded it onto the third truck. This included several boxes of mineral water given by good Samaritans.

At this juncture, three officials from the High Commission tried to intervene.

“They told the Rela ‘captain’ that these men had passports and valid documents, but the Rela captain’ ignored them,” he said.

In 20 minutes, it was all over. The raiding party left nothing, except some shoes, clothing and bloodstains, all belonging to the victims.

“There was no reason for the brutality that we saw. They were forced to camp at the place. They didn’t commit any crime. They just want justice,” stressed Michael.

Suaram Press Statement:

2 March 2006

STOP RELA IMMEDIATELY FROM RAIDS ON MIGRANT WORKERS

Suaram is appalled by the violence acts of the RELA personnel when arresting about 70 migrant workers from India, who gathered in front of the Indian High Commission to seek intervention from the High Commission over their claim of exploitation by their employers.

Suaram also views with grave concerns over the BBC report of the death of five people, one of them confirmed to be a Burmese migrant worker, during a RELA raid in the open market of Selayang on 11 February 2006.

Suaram believes these cases represent only a tip of iceberg of rampant abuse of powers and corruption involving the RELA personnel. We strongly condemns the violence acts and corruption of RELA personnel and call on the government to investigate immediately both the incidents and bring those RELA personnel involved in the abuse of power and committed human rights violations to be brought to justice.

These incidents once again proven that the worries raised by Suaram and other 39 non-governmental organizations in a joint memorandum to the government last year on the possible gross human rights violations that might happen by involving the semi-trained RELA personnel in the raid of undocumented migrant workers in the country is not unfounded.

If even the Inspector General of Police admitted that many district chief police officers (OCPD) in the country are not well trained in human rights, one could expect an even higher numbers of abuse of power and corruption cases if RELA is continued to be deployed by the government in the raid of undocumented migrant workers.

Suaram calls on the government to immediately stop the deployment of RELA in the raid of migrant workers as they are not professionally trained and accountable to conduct such operations.

Yap Swee Seng
Executive director

SUARAM is an independent, non-profit and non-governmental organisation working for the protection and realisation of human rights in Malaysia regardless of the government-of-the-day. Much of SUARAM's work is in monitoring and documentation of human rights violations. (www.suaram.net)

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