There is a whirling sound followed by a chilling shriek and suddenly excruciating pain explodes throughout his back. His knees buckle but he remains standing, only because he is roped into place for the ordeal.

Once untied, he is told to leave the room quickly by the guards. Blood oozing from his wound, he staggers out to make way for the next victim.

This episode from the Kajang prison will be forever etched in Fariz's memory. The 37-year-old Rohingya asylum seeker was among the first casualties of an amended immigration law which allows for the jailing and whipping of illegal immigrants.

Unlucky encounters

"I had to lean on a frame. Then they tied me to it at the waist, and thighs. I had to hold my arms up and two guards held on to my elbows," he says, demonstrating.

"One guard then swung a cane about one-inch thick round and round above his head. He shouted something before he hit me. The pain was like nothing I ever felt before."

The 'whirling' sound, he explains, was made by the cane as it was being rotated for momentum before being brought down.

Fariz then lowers his trousers halfway to reveal a scar, approximately eight inches long, across his buttocks.

"This scar will be with me for the rest of my life. And I was lucky. There were three cane sizes. I got the big one. The thin ones are much worse."

Fariz's describes this as only one of three 'unlucky' encounters he has had with local authorities since the new law was implemented last August.

Previously, only repeat offenders were punished with jail terms. Now, first time offenders too face mandatory whipping in addition to a jail term and a fine. And Malaysian authorities do not distinguish between economic migrants and asylum seekers.

The first time, Fariz recalls, was when he worked at a construction site which was raided by the authorities came. Out of fear and desperation, he ran but fell three storeys down.

"I broke my leg and hurt my shoulder so I was sent to the hospital. My leg is healed now but my shoulder still hurts. I cannot do any heavy work anymore," says the asylum seeker who first came to Malaysia in 1994.

Several months later, he was arrested and sentenced to a five-month jail term and one stroke of the cane. After serving his sentence, he was sent to the Semenyih detention centre for a spell before he was deported.

He later made his way back to Malaysia and was arrested again when he sought treatment for his shoulder. This time, he was sent straight to Semenyih, and deported shortly to Burma via Thailand.

"The camp people knew that I was sick so they did not want to keep me there. They did not want me get sicker or die there."

Fariz says he was deported to the Malaysian-Thai border at Padang Besar, Perlis, where he was handed over to Thai immigration authorities.

A check by malaysiakini reveals that a number of Burmese asylum seekers said the usual practice was for undocumented immigrants to be deported to Thailand at Sungai Golok in Kelantan.

There, they fall prey to human traffickers who detain them in private camps until they are able to buy their freedom.

New route

But Fariz says Malaysian authorities have a new policy. Those being deported were now surrendered directly to Thai authorities at Padang Besar.

They are then kept for several months at Thailand's immigration detention camps before being sent back to Burma by sea.

"We were like cattle - they cramped many of us in the ferry. Three persons jumped off to drown in the sea because they could not face the prospect of being sent back."

A reprieve is not impossible but it would come at a price. Fariz's friends in Kuala Lumpur contacted some 'agents' who then arranged for him to be taken aside on arrival in Burma and sent on a return passage to Thailand.

"That trip cost me Kyats 300,000 (about RM1,200). I am now more than RM4,000 in debt because I had to buy my way out twice."

At rough estimates, there are at least 7,000 Rohingyas in Malaysia who are faced with the same predicament, all undocumented and mostly unprotected.

Like Fariz, they claim to have fled military persecution and forced labour in their villages in the northwestern Burmese state of Arakan, which borders Bangladesh. They have also been denied citizenship.

Seeking asylum

Fariz has since applied for asylum with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) but he is awaiting an interview appointment to be considered for recognition, and hopefully later resettled in another country.

His nephew, Zainal and his young family, are more fortunate as they prepare to leave for resettlement in New Zealand.

"I cannot go with them but I am happy all the same. There the children can go to school," he said looking as his two nieces and nephew.

Until and unless he gets the same recognition, he reckons he will have to remain in Malaysia and face any consequences that would accompany this decision - including arrests, whipping, deportations and debts.

"Life is difficult here but I have friends to help me out. It is much worse back home. There, I would certainly be sent to jail," laments Fariz who claims that his father and brother were shot dead by the junta.

He says that a friend was recently spared a whipping sentence only with the timely intervention of the UNHCR.

"He was spared only because of UNHCR. It shouldn't even be like this. They should not punish us like this at all because we are only here because we have nowhere else to go to."