First-time illegal immigrants to be whipped under amended law

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The government has amended a law to include public whipping for immigrants convicted of entering the country illegally for the first time, a senior official said today.

Currently, the Immigration Act allows whipping only for those committing the offence for the second time.

Immigration department director-general Mohamad Jamal Kamdi said a bill to amend the Act to provide whipping for first-time offenders was awaiting royal assent.

Following that, the bill would become law and likely be enforced from June, he was quoted as saying by Bernama news agency.

Mohamad Jamal said an estimated 400,000 illegal immigrants were in Malaysia at present.

In the one-month period from March 22, he said a total of 21,821 illegal immigrants - 87 percent of whom were Indonesians - had returned to their countries voluntarily under an amnesty program.

Malaysia granted a similar amnesty in 1998.

Malaysia is home to some 750,000 legal foreign workers and hundreds of thousands of mainly-Indonesian illegal immigrants.

Riot incidents

The government, which has said it aims to deport about 10,000 Indonesian illegal immigrants every month, in January launched an offensive against the migrants with almost daily arrests.

Malaysia's increasing intolerance of illegal immigrants was also turned against legal workers from Indonesia after two riots in January by textile and construction workers.

The government announced that Indonesians would be hired in future only as domestic helpers and plantation workers.



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