A video clip of a naked female in a locker room, forced to perform repeated squats in front of a woman in police uniform and arms akimbo, has sparked an uproar in Malaysia that may not easily die down.

For one thing, the controversy comes at a time when Malaysia is preparing to play host to the 10-nation Asean summit next week. The grouping includes Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos and Burma.

The clip appears to be the strongest evidence yet of degrading treatment and abuse in police custody since images of the black eye inflicted on former deputy premier Anwar Ibrahim flashed around the world in 1998.

Last week, opposition member of parliament Teresa Kok brought the issue to public attention when she showed the clip to fellow parliamentarians and reporters at the parliament lobby in Kuala Lumpur.

''This is only the tip of the iceberg,'' she told IPS . ''I believe there is a lot of abuse going on in the police stations. When I first saw the clip, my first reaction was to believe that the earlier allegations (of degrading treatment) made by three women from China were true.''

Government leaders too expressed outrage at the degrading treatment meted out to the woman, apparently ethnic Chinese, further removing any lingering doubts as to the clip's authenticity. The clip then received wide publicity in the mainstream press.

The 70-second video was circulated among Malaysians who have hand-phones that allow video clips to be screened. They were later posted on Internet websites, reaching an even larger audience - making the affair impossible for the mainstream media to ignore.

'Disgusting movie'

"The clip was a - disgusting movie of one human being, having forsaken all sense of decency, treating another human being (over whom she had control) in a degrading, humiliating and wanton manner," said Yeo Yang Poh, the chair of the Malaysian Bar Council, in a strong statement.

All Malaysians should view the video clip, and ask themselves how they have allowed things to come to this stage, and in what disastrous direction they are heading, he said.

''This rare piece of material confirms what Malaysians have heard and believed all these years about the inhumane and degrading treatment of persons in custody,'' he added.

The shocking video clip capped a month when allegations of corruption, abuse of power and the torture and degrading treatment of detainees was very much in the news.

Earlier, the Parliamentary Human Rights Caucus had spoken out against what it felt were moves by the police to go after corruption whistleblowers, pointing out that such action would only deter potential complainants from speaking out.

The caucus was reacting to reports that a teenager in the southern state of Negri Sembilan was facing a civil suit brought by a police officer whom she had reported to the Anti-Corruption Agency for allegedly demanding and taking a bribe over a traffic offence.

The caucus' chairperson, Mohd Nazri Abdul Aziz, had also expressed concern about police visiting the residences of the three Chinese nationals, following their complaints of degrading treatment at the hands of police.

These revelations prompted Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi to instruct Home Minister Azmi Khalid to go to China to explain that Chinese nationals were not being targeted or singled out by enforcement agencies.

Chinese tourists

Parliamentary opposition leader Lim Kit Siang pointed out that tourists from China had dropped 74 percent from 550,000 to 148,000 in the first half of 2005 compared to the same period last year. Malaysia also has extensive trade ties with China and is believed to be anxious not to have those links undermined.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Noh Omar, for his part, defended the police, saying that only one percent of the 85,000 police personnel in the country were bad hats.

But Bar Council's Yeo asked, "Does anyone really and honestly believe that this is just an isolated incident?"

Not surprisingly, despite the explicit nature of the video clip, few Malaysians appeared genuinely shocked. Apart from the black eye inflicted on Ibrahim, former detainees under Malaysia's feared Internal Security Act, which allows detention without charge, had previously complained of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Those detained during the 'reformasi' period from 1998-2000 have their own harrowing tales to tell.

Early November, a local daily carried a report of an opposition politician, a lawyer and his client claiming to have witnessed a detainee being tortured by policemen at a district police headquarters.

They claimed that the man, in his 20s, was gagged with white tape and had his hands bound behind his back and that the abuse had taken place during interrogation in a criminal investigation department room. The district's police chief, however, denied the incident.

Already, some Malaysians have begun comparing the images in the video clip to the abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees at the hands of the United States military in Abu Ghraib. Like Abu Ghraib, there had been much talk about abuse and torture previously but the issue only received massive media publicity when images of such degrading treatment reached the public.

Independent commission

There have been few calls for a major inquiry into the police over the whole issue. That's because it was only in May that a 'Royal Commission to Enhance the Operation and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police' released its report.

Ironically, the commission was set up following a slide in the image of the police that began with revelations that the then chief of police, Rahim Nor, had dealt near fatal blows to Anwar while in police custody in 1998. A court later sentenced Rahim to two months' jail.

The 433-page report by the Commission included 125 recommendations, the most significant being the proposal for an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission to be established. This body was supposed to be set up under an Act of Parliament with powers to receive and investigate complaints regarding alleged police misconduct and to punish those found guilty of any misconduct.

But there appears to be little progress in implementing the recommendations in the report.

Opposition parliamentarian Kok hopes that the video images will now spur the authorities to action even as she credited senior ruling party officials Mohd Nazri and Azmi Khalid for helping to highlight the issue. ''For it was only when they spoke out and expressed outrage that the mainstream media dared to make this their front page news.''

All eyes are now on the prime minister to see if he will press ahead and establish the independent commission.

"If we don't have such a commission, this kind of abuse will only continue,'' said Kok.