Suaram disputes custodial death numbers given in Parliament
Human rights group Suaram is disputing the data on deaths in police custody which was revealed by Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin in Dewan Rakyat on Sept 15, saying that it does not include the number of deaths recorded this year.
Last Wednesday, Hamzah gave an oral reply to a question from PKR's Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Karim regarding custodial death statistics.
Hamzah informed the Dewan Rakyat that...
Human rights group Suaram is disputing the data on deaths in police custody which was revealed by Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin in Dewan Rakyat on Sept 15, saying that it does not include the number of deaths recorded this year.
Last Wednesday, Hamzah gave an oral reply to a question from PKR's Pasir Gudang MP Hassan Karim regarding custodial death statistics.
Hamzah informed the Dewan Rakyat that for the year 2021 up until August, there were only six deaths in police lockups.
“We are confused as to how the ministry records the number of deaths in custody. This is because, based on the given answer, the stated number does not include the number of deaths that are evidently instances of deaths in custody,” Suaram executive director Sevan Doraisamy said in a statement.
“The death of S Sivabalan as soon as he was arrested by the police from the Gombak police headquarters and the death of Umar Faruq Abdullah@Hemanathan who passed away in the custody of Klang Selatan police headquarters are examples of cases missing from the recorded number of six.
“Why were the deaths of Sivabalan, who clearly died in less than an hour after his arrest, as well as that of Umar Faruq not considered as deaths in custody?" Sevan asked.
He reminded Hamzah that the National Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) had in its 2016 report defined deaths in custody as deaths that occur during arrests by the police, deaths in police detention, and deaths wherein detainees die on the way to receiving medical treatment as well as when they die at a medical facility in cases where ward admission is necessary whilst still in police custody.
"Are these statistics due to the ministry viewing solely deaths that occur in police lockup as deaths in custody? If so, this is clearly in contradiction with the definition of deaths in custody as per multiple parties," said Sevan.
As such, the death of A Ganapathy following his arrest by the Gombak police on Feb 24 should be categorised as a death in police custody, he pointed out.
“This is due to the fact that despite him being admitted to a public medical facility, the injuries sustained by Ganapathy resulted from his detention, and thus it is a death following police custody,” he said.
“It is exceedingly clear from the total deaths listed in the oral reply mentioned above, that many deaths in custody recorded by Suaram are not considered to be deaths in custody,” added Sevan.
“This is not just a shallow interpretation but also another tactic to misrepresent the number of deaths in custody as being on the decline despite many deaths in custody not being recorded due to them not occurring solely in police lockups.
“We also would like to question the Home Ministry on their reluctance to produce any data and statistics on deaths in custody. At the very least, the ministry should come clean on simple data related to deaths in custody such as detention places, age, gender, ethnicity and nationality," he said.
Aside from Ganapathy and Sivabalan, whose deaths were related to police lockups, there were also deaths in Kajang prison and in the custody of the National Anti-Drugs Agency, in which family members of the deceased alleged abuse.
In July, a team from Bukit Aman raided the Freedom Film Network (FFN) office in Petaling Jaya and the house of cartoonist Amin Landak in Wangsa Maju in connection with an ongoing probe on a local animation that highlighted allegations of police brutality.
The four-minute animation Chilli Powder & Thinner was based on the true story of a boy who testified to being tortured while under police custody with two of his friends.
FFN founder Anna Har and Amin were being investigated under Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act and Sections 500 and 505B of the Penal Code.
Three Malaysiakini journalists were also questioned following the reports over Ganapathy's death.
