Sajakkini

Elizabeth Wong : 13th Floor

In the long list of individuals named by premier Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s government as “eminent and credible” enough to be members of the ‘Special Commission to Enhance the Operations and Management of the Royal Malaysia Police’, one name stands out from the rest - Mohd Hanif Omar.

This is a man certainly not known for his ferocity in the defence of civil liberties, or for an exemplary record of putting the police in place. Finding the former director of Special Branch and ex-inspector general of police (June 1974-January 1994) on the name list has caused much distress to all victims of police torture during his time.

When his name was first suggested by, no less than a sitting member of the Human Rights Commission (Suhakam), many human rights activists were aghast. That he has been appointed deputy chairperson is a bad reflection on the credibility of the special commission.

ELIZABETH WONG has been involved in human rights since her student days in Sydney. She is currently the secretary-general of the National Human Rights Society (Hakam), a member of the Suaram secretariat and was a human rights fellow of Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs (2002-03). ‘13th Floor‘ will attempt to look into the paradoxes and intricacies of democracy and politics. In her spare time, she revives her search for Dante (the lost cat). She is still leaving the option of playing guitar in a loud band open.

Instead of sitting on the commission and deciding on how to prevent further abuse of police powers, he should in fact be placed in the dock to explain the long list of human rights abuses perpetrated by his officers under his command.

He should be asked why the police - in particular those from the Special Branch - played an active political role during the 1987-88 crises in Umno and the judiciary; how the police force came to be used by the ruling party to undermine internal opposition within the party and those from the opposition as well as then burgeoning social movements.

He should be asked why the Malaysian police chose to resort to the most cruel, crude and inhumane methods when dealing with suspects and political detainees. He should be questioned why villagers of Kampung Memali had to be massacred in November 1985.

Disclosures by victims

If one was to pick an example to illustrate Hanif’s role in the deteriorating state of law enforcement, one only needs to refer to the wanton use of the Internal Security Act (ISA) during the police sweep code-named Operasi Lalang.

More than 100 persons were arrested and detained without trial. All were innocent and peace-loving Malaysians - political party leaders, opposition activists, social activists, environmentalists, educationists and a handful of Christian evangelists.

The documentation and affidavits filed by the former detainees would amply attest to how the police were playing an active part in lending support to one of the greatest lies of our times. At the same time, they provide a glimpse of despicable and brutal ways the Special Branch officers used to ‘break’ ISA detainees.

Chow Chee Keong, a theatre activist at the time of Operasi Lalang, related after his release, the methods used to coerce him into giving false confessions. They include threats of bodily harm to his family, regular beatings and the ‘notorious’ cold-water treatment. He also recounted that a police interrogator had tried to burn his genitals with a sheet of newspaper.

The few female ISA detainees of 1987 were not spared. Many of them until today have chosen not to mention or recollect in public what had happened to them. But an insight can be gained from Irene Xavier who detailed her experience in the hands of the police.

“I was forced to stand there while an inspector of the Special Branch beat me with a stick - to remind me that they were not going to treat women more leniently,” she said.

One of the more public disclosures of physical torture under the ISA was during the 1988 habeas corpus hearing of Christian evangelist Yeshua Jamaluddin.

“I was not allowed to sleep for days at a stretch and was warned that I would not get any food if I did not co-operate. One inspector Yusoff also threatened to disturb my girlfriend if I did not give any information. I was assaulted by inspectors Yusoff, Zainuddin, Ayub and another officer on a number of occasions. On one occasion I was knocked to the ground and injured my back. Since then, I have been passing blood in my urine and have been suffering from pains in my lower back constantly…

“On another occasion during interrogation, inspector Yusoff forced me to strip naked and to enact the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Inspector Yusoff also forced me to crawl on the floor in a naked state…

“A police constable forced me to stand on one leg with both my arms outstretched holding my slippers. He made me remain in this position for two hours. He then called in a woman constable and her young daughter and asked them to look at me, saying: ‘This Malay is not aware of who he is. He changed his religion. He has no shame!’”

Another account

This kind of cruel and inhumane police treatment by the police was not reserved for those arrested during Operasi Lalang. The torture of former Sarawak state assembly representative Abdul Rahman Hamzah was revealed in the 1989 March parliamentary session:

“I was tortured by various means … at any one time there were always three officers present but on one occasion, seven officers tortured me by kicking, punching, slapping and by hitting me with broom sticks. I lost consciousness a few times.

“I was asked to duck walk, frog jump, crawl all over the room, corridor and bathroom, urinate like a dog, given the air-condition treatment after a cold shower, forced to do hundreds of push-ups…

“A tin was used to cover my head and at the same time the tin was hit with a stick. The sound of the hitting of the tin deafened (me) and cut and bruised my head, cheeks and ears. This caused my head and upper face to swell.

“My interrogators would sometimes lift my body by throttling my throat with their hands and at the same time forcing me up. When this was done, my throat protruded and saliva would come out of my mouth. At the same time I was being hit over the cheeks and jaw areas… They twisted my wrist and body round several times before swinging me violently against the wall.

“I was forced to do mock sexual acts before my sneering torturers who also used stretched elastic bands to flick at my ears and nipples… My head was pushed into a filthy squat toilet bowl while it was flushed repeatedly… I was also poked with a floor mop used for cleaning the toilet…”

Inclusion ‘a scandal’

The police tactics in dealing with ISA detainees have changed little. The beating of former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim and the torture of his associates in 1998 is testament to this.

Last month, 31 alleged members of ‘extremist Islamic organisations’ currently held without trial in the Kamunting Detention Centre, filed a 15-page complaint to Suhakam, which listed an extraordinary catalogue of brutality and humiliation in the hands of the police.

Torture under the ISA has been going on as long as this draconian legislation has existed and we expect the police special commission to address this dark side of the Malaysian police and to make redress.

The reason why the police force continues to act with impunity until today is because the state has turned a blind eye to their actions - custodial rape, extra-judicial killings (known as the ’shoot-to-kill’ policy) of suspects, deaths in police custody and physical torture.

It is little wonder the government finds itself in an embarassing spot whenever its non-ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture is raised.

If the special commission is to pursue its stated goals of reforming the police, its members must have credibility in the eyes of the people. We do not want to see the usual whitewash. We do not want to hear the usual excuses. This is not going to happen when a key member of the special commission has so many skeletons in his cupboard.

Apart from the completely inappropriate inclusion of Hanif, the majority of the commissioners have little credibility as watchdogs of the police.

This would not have happened if the government had opted to delegate the commission’s selection process to, at the very least, a parliamentary select committee comprising of parliamentarians of both political divide and members from the legal and human rights fraternity who have been closely monitoring the Malaysian police for decades.

The inclusion of Hanif is scandalous and an affront to all who seek an end to police impunity. Allowing him to continue in the special commission is to permit a farcical exercise in futility.

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References:

‘Tangled Web: Dissent, Deterrence and the 27 October Crackdown in Malaysia’, Carpa, 1988, Sydney

‘The White Paper on The October Affair and The Why? Papers’, Das, K and Suaram, Suaram Komunikasi, 1989, Kuala Lumpur

‘445 Days Behind the Wire’, Kua, Kia Soong, Oriengroup, 1999 (reprint), Kuala Lumpur