The Human Rights Commission (Suhakam) has promised to investigate allegations that Sri Lankan refugees who were recently detained in Johor were mistreated.

Speaking to reporters after meeting some of the detainees at Suhakam's headquarters in Kuala Lumpur, commissioner Jerald Joseph stressed that law enforcers must be humane.

"The immigration officers need to stop thinking like they have full power. They need to respect the basic dignity of human beings.

"This Malaysia cannot be the old Malaysia where we hear stories of torture, of medicine and sanitary pads not given to women…"

According to Joseph, refugees recounted to him that they were chastised by Immigration Department officers upon request for medicine to treat their illnesses.

"Some (of the refugees at the detention centre) were sick and not given medicine.

"The officers scolded them saying 'Do you all think this is a hotel, asking for this and that?'"

Joseph added that there are standard operating procedures which Immigration Department officers cannot ignore.

"The immigration officers are not doctors. If someone tells you they're sick, you simply bring them to the doctor for consultation.

"You shouldn't just touch someone (on the arm) and say you're 'not hot'," he said, referring to one refugee who claimed to have been denied medical attention because an immigration officer assessed that the person was not feverish.

Meanwhile, human rights watchdog Suaram, who accompanied the 30 refugees to Suhakam, said the treatment by immigration officers at the Pekan Nanas detention centre was unjust.

Suaram also alleged that there was an unreported death in custody.

"We heard from an internal source that one of the Sri Lankans died during detention. It was not informed to us by the immigration officials," executive director Sevan Doraisamy (photo) told reporters after the meeting.

He also pointed to another unreported custodial death of a Malaysian national, and questioned the lack of reportage by the immigration centre.

"Why did immigration not entertain this issue, that there was someone who died in custody, for the record?" he asked.

According to Suaram, 131 Sri Lankan asylum seekers were arrested on a boat as they were about to depart Johor for New Zealand on May 1.

While most were released in late June, a number of the refugees were approached with false information by the Sri Lanka High Commission, and convinced to sign an agreement for repatriation.

A group of these refugees met with Suhakam today to appeal for a halt to their scheduled deportation back to Sri Lanka on July 5.

However, in their statements to Suhakam, the Sri Lankan refugees claimed they were mistreated by officers at the Pekan Nanas Immigration Detention Centre.

Suhakam pledged to write to the UNHCR, the attorney-general and National Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka to bring a halt to the refugees' deportation if their hometowns are unsafe and inappropriate for return.