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Very serious complaints have been made by former ISA detainees Tian Chua and Hishammuddin Rais that they had been assaulted by security personnel on 9 May 2003 while they were under detention in Kamunting Detention Camp. Detailed accounts of the incident have been put down in writing not only by the two of them, but also by other detainees who witnessed the same. The Bar Council is given to understand that these accounts have been submitted to SUHAKAM on 1 July 2003. The complaints levied include the unnecessary use of force, brutal assault, intimidation, verbal abuse, humiliation and degrading treatment of the detainees concerned. Among other things, witnesses described how numerous security personnel, some in riot gear, had overwhelmed and assaulted the two defenceless detainees within the camp in what appears to have been a planned action. If true, it boggles the mind as to why it could have been necessary for the security personnel to confront in that manner a detainee who was already entirely in their custody and control.

The use of the ISA is in itself wrong in principle, and the Bar Council has consistently denounced the same. The situation is rendered far more deplorable if persons detained are subject to inhumane treatment, whether verbal, physical or psychological, by those in whose care they are placed. Such ill-treatment, if true, reveals the alarming lack of respect, on the part of the warders, for the human person and for human dignity. It will further confirm the dangerous disregard of human rights that an unjust system of detention has helped to nurture.

The Bar Council calls upon SUHAKAM to immediately conduct a full and open inquiry into the complaints made by these former detainees, and thereafter to make public its findings. Acts which are done inside places of detention and which are therefore usually shielded from public gaze must not be allowed to escape public scrutiny.

There can be no imaginable justification for cowardly acts of custodial violence. Complaints of this nature must be thoroughly, transparently and promptly investigated. Public confidence is at stake.

Dated this 2nd day of July 2003.

Haji Kuthubul Zaman Bukhari
Chairman
Bar Council