Deaths in immigration detention: Anyone can die anywhere - Hamzah

Deaths in immigration detention: Anyone can die anywhere - Hamzah


Home Minister Hamzah Zainudin said if he could predict deaths in detention to prevent them, that would make him “great”, but he pointed out that anyone can die anywhere.

“If I knew someone was going to die and not place them in detention, I would be great.

“If we detain them, that means they have committed a crime.

“When someone has committed a crime, we are forced to follow the existing laws,” he said when asked about deaths in Sabah detention centres.

Hamzah was speaking to reporters at the Covid-19 Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) Enforcement and Compliance Coordination Committee appreciation ceremony in Putrajaya today.

According to a report released by the Sovereign Migrant Workers Coalition (KBMB) on June 25, it said the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta recorded 149 Indonesians who died in five Sabah detention centres over 18 months between 2021 and 2022.

Separated from parents, sleeping in toilets

The report titled “A Report from Hell: Conditions of the Immigration Detention Centres in Sabah” also revealed appalling conditions in these detention centres and toddlers being held there.

In it, the group detailed children losing their parents in the centre and detainees forced to sleep in the toilet.

Quoting statistics from the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta, the report was derived from interviews conducted with 100 deportees in shelters managed by the Technical Implementation Unit of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency based in Nunukan, North Kalimantan.

No statistics were provided for detainees of other nationalities.

“Detainees were denied their rights to health as efforts were not made toward their responsibilities to protect the health of detainees and ensure they can access every health service and facility,” alleged the report.

Nunukan is where 2,191 migrant workers and their families were deported between March 2021 and June this year.

The report revealed that 10 deportation programmes from five immigration detention centres in Sabah were carried out during this period.

Of the deportees, 1,765 (80 percent) were male migrants and 426 (30 percent) were female.

The shocking report revealed that 57 toddlers were among these numbers and another 195 (nine percent) were 18 years old.

Stop cruel treatment

“Owing to the poor conditions in the immigration detention centre, detainees quickly turned into patients,” described the report, highlighting incidents in the Tawau and Sandakan detention centres.

KBMB alleged that detainees were deliberately neglected and sick detainees were purposely not referred to a healthcare centre before their illnesses worsened.

“One deportee even died at the Nunukan Hospital only six hours after arriving at the seaport.

“Many deportees have to use a wheelchair because they are weak and disabled due to illness,” the report said.

The coalition recommended that detention should be considered as a last resort, given that large-scale arrests and detentions caused overcrowding in such facilities.

It also recommended that arrests be scrutinised individually rather than mass arrests of detainees be tried immediately knowing full well the reasons for their detainment.

The coalition asked for arrested persons to be given a reasonable time to prove their documentation as some had their documentation confiscated by employers.

The group stressed that lashing as punishment must be stopped along with all incidents of torture and cruel treatment.