Satu berita - makna berbeda (Satu BERNAMA Satu lagi REUTERS)

Tahanan Di Malaysia Diberi Layanan Baik - Kumpulan Hak Asasi Manusia PBB

KUALA LUMPUR: Sebuah jawatankuasa dari Majlis Hak Asasi Manusia Pertubuhan Bangsa-Bangsa Bersatu (PBB) berkata, tahanan di Malaysia diberi layanan baik dan memuji bilangan mereka yang ditahan mengikut Akta Keselamatan Dalam Negeri (ISA) semakin berkurangan.

Kumpulan Kerja mengenai Timbang Tara Penahanan berada di Malaysia selama seminggu dan memeriksa lima pusat tahanan termasuk Pusat Tahanan Kamunting di mana tahanan ISA ditempatkan.

Ia mengesyorkan supaya Malaysia memansuhkan atau meminda empat undang-undang pencegahan termasuk ISA untuk disesuaikan dengan Pengisytiharan Universal mengenai Hak Asasi Manusia.

Tiga lagi adalah Ordinan Darurat (Ketenteraman Awam dan Pencegahan Jenayah), Akta Dadah Berbahaya (Langkah-langkah Pencegahan Khas) dan Akta Kediaman Terhad. "Undang-undang ini menafikan hak tahanan kepada perbicaraan awam yang adil oleh tribunal yang adil dan saksama dan bebas, seperti yang termaktub di dalam Pengisytiharan Universal mengenai Hak Asasi Manusia dan prinsip undang-undang adat antarabangsa yang lain," kata El Hadji Malick Sow yang mengetuai lima anggota kumpulan yang tiba di sini pada 7 Jun atas jemputan kerajaan Malaysia.

"Kenyataannya bahawa kerajaan menjemput kami di sini menunjukkan kesediaannya untuk memperbaiki. Kami akan mengemukakan laporan kepada Majlis Hak Asasi Mansia pada Mac tahun depan dan kami juga akan membuat susulan mengenai keadaan itu dalam tempoh dua tahun," katanya.

Laporan awal juga diberi kepada Timbalan Menteri Dalam Negeri Lee Chee Leong hari ini, katanya.

Sow berkata, kumpulan kerja itu juga menerima kerjasama yang baik dari kerajaan Malaysia dan agensi-agensi berkaitan termasuk dalam menyediakan maklumat yang perlu dan mengatur semua perjumpaan seperti yang diminta.

Beliau juga menyebut mengenai perkembangan positif dengan berkata para tahanan berada dalam keadaan baik, hubungan yang baik antara tahanan dan warden dan tiada layanan buruk seperti didakwa.

Penurunan bilangan tahanan ISA kepada 15 orang patut dipuji, katanya.

Kumpulan Kerja itu telah melawat Penjara Kajang, Penjara Puncak Borneo, Penjara Pengkalan Chepa, Pusat Tahanan Kamunting dan Pusat Tahanan Simpang Renggam.

Dalam tempoh lawatan itu, ia telah menjalankan temubual dengan para tahanan termasuk kesemua 15 tahanan ISA, berjumpa dengan wakil-akil kerajaan dan banadn bukan kerajaan (NGO) selain membuat lawatan mengejut ke balai polis Simpang Renggam.

Sow berkata, kebanyakan para tahanan memilih untuk berada di penjara daripada diletakkan di pusat-pusat tahanan atau di bawah tahanan polis.

Katanya mereka juga tidak dimaklumkan mengenai hak-hak mereka semasa dalam tahanan polis terutama hak-hak untuk menghubungi kaum keluarga atau berunding dengan peguam. - BERNAMA

UN slams Malaysia’s detention-without-trial laws

(Reuters) - Malaysia needs to repeal or amend draconian laws that allow imprisonment without trial and have been used against opposition politicians, journalists and bloggers, a UN body said today.

The UN working group was invited by the government and has been in Malaysia for two weeks to look into arbitrary detentions. It gave a critical assessment on four preventive laws including the Internal Security Act (ISA).

“These preventive laws are exclusively administrative and do not allow intervention by the judiciary,” the group’s chairman, Malick Sow, told reporters. “It is a classic case of arbitrary detention.”

The ISA, which dates back to British colonial rule, permits detention without trial with detainees usually held incommunicado and rarely charged in court.

Its use has been justified on the grounds of maintaining national security although many of its high-profile victims have been opposition politicians.

Former Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim, who now leads the opposition, was imprisoned under the ISA when he was the leader of a Muslim youth movement.

He is currently on trial on sodomy charges in what he says is a repeat of a politically motivated prosecution that saw him dismissed from office in 1998, put on trial and imprisoned.

The government had pledged to review the ISA before Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak took office in April last year but no changes have taken place yet.

The ISA and other laws are used against people suspected of criminal activity and against terror suspects.

Sow said the group privately interviewed detainees held under preventive laws and found no complaints about treatment by guards in prisons and detention centres.

However, the group found these detainees were likely to be tortured or mistreated in order to obtain confessions or evidence in police detention.

“It is not necessarily physical violence but also the external conditions and the withholding of food. There were few who said any particular tool was used to beat them but it was more to do with punching and kicking,” Sow said.

“They prefer prisons than police stations. They feel safer in prisons.”

The group will present a full report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in March next year and will follow up again two years after the report is presented.

Malaysia was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council last month.