A cramped detention room, poor food with menial servings and mean officers - this is what illegal immigrants detained at the Kuala Lumpur Immigration Department headquarters lock-up in Pusat Bandar Damansara have to cope with everyday.

Against this backdrop, former Internal Security Act (ISA) detainee Mohamad Iqbal A Rahman described the living condition in the lock-up as "worse" than the two years he spent at the Kamunting detention centre in Taiping, Perak.

He made the revelation in a letter sent to a relative, a copy of which was made available to malaysiakini today.

The Indonesian religious preacher is being held by the Immigration Department after his permanent resident (PR) status was revoked on Aug 22 upon completing his ISA detention.

The father of 12 has since appealed against the revocation to the immigration chief and has filed for leave to obtain an order of certiorari to quash the decision.

Overcrowded cell

Mohamad Iqbal also claimed that there was no restriction on the number of detainees in the two "eight by five metre" detention rooms where the male and female detainees are held separately.

"Right now, there are only 11 of us (male detainees). When I first came there were 32. I fear for the worst because one of the detainees told me how he was cramped in the room before with 70 others!" he said in the letter.

His relative known only as Pak Din said the "worst" had happened as Mohamad Iqbal informed him today that the lock-up is terribly cramped due to the latest influx of detainees.

"He said he is in a squatting position and cannot even sit properly. That is how bad it is," he told malaysiakini .

In his letter, Mohamad Iqbal said the detainees are only given two slices of bread and a packet of plain tea for breakfast while lunch consists of a packet of rice, a piece of chicken liver and a drink.

"Dinner for us will be rice, half portion of salted egg, a menial piece of chicken and a packet of drink. We are not given any vegetables but only some curry gravy. That is what they have been giving us everyday for the past three weeks," he said.

Because no food or drink are served in between the main meals, thirsty detainees are forced to drink water from the pipe in the toilet, he added.

He also lamented the difficulty the detainees faced without toothpaste, toothbrush, soap or detergent. They had to beg for the items for days.

"We had to wait for days before one kind officer actually took pity on us and bought us the items," he said.

Mohamad Iqbal also alleged that medical attention requested by the detainees are always ignored.

"Worse, there are officers who even requested for money when we asked for medication.

"No money, no medicine, they told us. I only got mine after my family visited me. One of the detainees here still has yet to get his medication for diabetes," he wrote.

Making life miserable

Mohamad Iqbal claimed that officials go to great lengths to make life difficult for the detainees such as by deliberately delaying meals.

"A new detainee arrived here recently and asked one officer named Abu Bakar if he could pray. The officer replied, 'People like you do not deserve to pray'. The same officer, who never helped us in any way would also reprimand others who treated us kindly," he said.

He also related one incident where he asked an officer for his family's 15-minute visit to be extended since his wife ( photo:left ) came all the way from Banting and the officer snapped: "Even if you come from the moon, I am not going to help you!"

"The detainees are detained for breaking immigration laws. But does that mean that we can be treated with such contempt? Why should we be treated like we have lost all our rights to be treated humanely?"

Mohamad Iqbal said the 'lackadaisical attitude' in handling the detainees' cases is distressing to those whose status are unclear.

"One can go crazy in the face of such uncertainty. I have seen it happened to a woman who suddenly screamed like mad the whole day before she was removed out early the next day. But to whom can they relate their problems to when they are denied access to lawyers as well."

He also mentioned the case of two detainees who had served their jail sentence for immigration offences more than a month ago but are still awaiting deportation. One of them, a Pakistani, had even bought a flight ticket home but it has since expired.

"Some had to wait between one and one-and-a-half month, for the immigration to open their file. When they enquired about their cases to the officers, they got angry and hurled abuses at us," he said.

Mohamad Iqbal also related the experience of several women detainees who told him that they had been tricked by their employment agency and forced into prostitution, including an Indonesian who claimed to be a mistress of a top police officer in Johor before she was arrested.