Parliament should repeal emergency ordinance (EO), Human Rights Watch says Thu Aug 24, 06 02:20:48 PM Oleh

Saadon Aksah KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 24 (Hrkh) - The Malaysian parliament should repeal the emergency ordinance (EO) and the government should rely on the country's criminal law instead to prosecute criminal offenses. "The Malaysian government is holding more than 700 criminal suspects indefinitely without trial or charge under (law provided by) the Emergency Ordinance," Human Rights Watch (HRW) researcher in the Asia division Sahr Muhammed Ally said. "The Emergency Ordinance was enacted in 1969 as a 'temporary measure' to respond to ethnic riots. But for nearly four decades the government has used the law to detain criminal suspects indefinitely without charge or trial, subjected them to beatings and ill treatment while in detention, and rearrested them upon court-ordered release," she said in a statement made available at a press conference on HRW 35 page report, "Convicted Before Trial: Indefinite Detention Under Malaysia's Emergency Ordinance" held here today. "Emergency Ordinance detainees live in a world of uncertainty, never knowing when they will be released," Sahr who is also the author of the report said. "Once released, there is no guarantee that they will not be rearrested and detained for the same alleged offense. This practice must end," she said. HRW, she said, was denied access by the government to visit Simpang Renggam detention centre in Johor where EO detainees were held under "inhumane and degrading conditions". "Former detainees told Human Right Watch about the overcrowded cells, poor hygiene, inadequate light and ventilation and inedible food at Simpang Renggam," she continued. She noted that the Malaysian Bar Council and the parliamentary caucus on Human Rights similarly concluded that conditions in Simpang Renggam were overcrowded and congested, after visits to the centre. It was also noted that by law, EO detainees were denied the ability to challenge the merits of their detention and were limited to court review of the procedural grounds for detention. "The government, however, fails to respect court orders when procedural challenges are successful, and often re-arrests detainees after they are released," she said. She noted that in June the police re-arrested 11 Emergency Ordinance detainees as they attempted to walk out of the Simpang Renggam detention centre after their release. Some criminal suspects were detained under the EO after having initially been detained

under successive pretrial detention orders, she said. Held without access to lawyer for 143 days through multiple remand orders Although the Malaysian criminal procedure code allows pretrial detention for only 15 days, she noted that the police in a practice referred to as "chain-smoking orders" or "road shows" to obtain successive remand orders for a suspect from different judges and jurisdictions for alleged involvement in different cases in order to continue detaining a suspect. "Having failed to collect evidence to charge a suspect, the police then seek an Emergency Ordinance order to continue detention of a suspect for an additional 60 days and then up to two years," she said. "It is a fundamental principle that guilt or innocence must be decided by an independent court, not by executive fiat," she stressed. She also noted that last year the government appointed Royal Commission to Enhance the Royal Malaysia Police recommended the repeal of the Emergency Ordinance, concluding that, "it had outlived its purpose and violated the right to liberty". "The government should listen to its own commission and repeal this draconian and outdated law," she said. "Otherwise, the country's claim that it operates on the rule of law will be exposed as nothing more than a pretense," she countered. Muhamed Ally will meet with Deputy Internal Security Minister Datuk Mohd Johari Baharum tomorrow and with Minister in the Prime Minister's Department Datuk Seri Nazri Aziz on Monday to highlight the content of the report. The press conference was also attended by representative of human right group Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) S. Arutchelvan and former EO detainee Mohamed Samsudin Mohamed Ibrahim, 41, who had filed a civil suit against the government, the police and the Internal Security Ministry for holding him incommunicado and without access to lawyer for a total of 143 days after his arrest in Dec 23,1999 for an alleged involvement in robbery offenses. Mohamed Samsudin was then detained for "further investigation" for an additional sixty days under the Emergency Ordinance and then ordered to spend two years in restricted residence.[ES] Posted by SiPenaPutih on Friday, August 25, 2006 at 6:19 PM | Permalink http://sipenaputih.blogspot.com/2006/08/parliament-should-repeal-emergency.html