A former Burmese Rohingya refugee in Malaysia today backed the recently released Human Rights Watch report alleging that the country treated the Rohingya Muslims in a "shameful manner" ([#1] Malaysia's treatment of Rohingya refugees 'getting worse' [/#], Aug 1).

Mohamad Sayed Mohamad Yunus, who was in Malaysia for eight years, refuted claims by the Malaysian Muslim Youth Movement (Abim) that some of the allegations in the report were inaccurate.

In a handwritten statement to malaysiakini this morning, Mohamad Sayed, who is now residing in Sydney, Australia, alleged that the Malaysian authorities considered the Muslim Rohingyas as illegal immigrants.

"These are displaced refugees," he said. "But they are often caught by the police and other government authorities and sent to the detention camps."

Mohamed Sayed said he was detained in the Semenyih, Lenggeng and Langkap illegal immigrant camps on three separate occasions, despite having protection from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

"I was in the Semenyih camp from 1997 to 1998," he said.

He added that while he was there, riots broke out between the Acehnese and the police and a number of the inmates were reportedly killed.

"The camp authorities immediately deported all of the Acehnese, Bangladeshis, Filipinos, Pakistanis, Thais, and Indians, but the Rohingyas including myself were sent to the Lenggeng camp in Negeri Sembilan," Mohamed Sayed said.

He added that they were left without shelter and water for more than 10 days when they arrived in the Lenggeng camp.

"The camp authorities kept beating us," said Mohamed Sayed.

He added that while he was in the camp, the police sent a few of them to the border of Thailand because they were sick with malaria, chicken pox, skin infection and tuberculosis.

"In April 1998, about 16 people died in the camp," he said. Despite this, the Burmese Embassy refused to see the detainees.

'In fairness to all'

Abim president Ahmad Azam Abdul Rahman in a press statement early this month said that it was unfair for the New York-based Human Rights Watch to level a general accusation against the Malaysian government "of mistreating Rohingyas in the country".

He added that many of the Rohingya refugees in Malaysia who have no proper identification documents except for those given by local Muslim organisations, including Abim, were treated fairly well by the police and other authorities.

"In fairness to all, the government has to treat all illegal immigrants equal. In most cases, deportations are carried out due to mischiefs committed by illegal immigrants which necessitate harsh police action," Ahmad said.

Instead, Abim lambasted the UNHCR in Malaysia for the problem of "refugees", saying that it had discriminated the Rohingyas by refusing to recognise them as refugees.

There are currently 25,000 Burmese in the country, 10,000 of whom are Muslim Rohingya refugees.

Mohamad Sayed said that he was arrested in his Kuala Lumpur house by the police "without any reason" in 1999 despite being classified as a UN refugee.

"I told the police that I am a Burmese Rohingya refugee protected by the UNHCR. The police told me that they were arresting me under the Internal Security Act. They kept me in the Dang Wangi lock-up without any access for a week before sending me to Langkap camp in Teluk Intan (Perak)," he said.

On hearing his detention, the Burma Solidarity Group Malaysia (BGSM), an NGO which supports Burmese refugees, informed the UNHCR office.

"But UNHCR did not answer. The BGSM helped me to eventually get resettlement in Australia," Mohamad Sayed said.

'No mistreatment'

According to a self-exiled Rohingya, Sami-ullah, who is also Abim's Muslim Minority Affairs executive secretary, the UNHCR only recognised five families and five individuals as refugees.

He added that neither the government, police nor Abim itself had mistreated the Rohingyas.

"The police only acted against the refugees when they misbehaved," he said when contacted by malaysiakini today.

He, however, admitted that he could not comment on the ill-treatment of the Rohingya detainees in police lock-ups or detention camps because "I have never been in these camps".

"But I know that the camp authorities do not detain the Rohingyas for too long. They are sent to the Malaysian-Thai border to leave the country," he said.

Sami-ullah added that he has personally written to the HRW in response to the report.

"I told them that the report could not do anything for us in Malaysia. It would only anger the Malaysian government who will subsequently send us to Thailand and back to Burma where we will be killed," Sami-ullah said.

The 78-page HRW report which was released on Aug 1 charged that Malaysia's treatment of thousands of Burmese refugees is "bad and getting worse".

It said that exiles were denied legal recognition as refugees, their children often were not permitted to attend school, were denied health care and live in a constant risk of arrest.

Unlike the majority of Burmese who are Buddhists, Rohingyas are Muslims mostly from the western state of Arakan.

A UNHCR official told malaysiakini that its representative in Malaysia, Shinji Kubo, would not be available for comment until Monday.