Malaysia’s home ministry admitted yesterday to poor standards at detention centers for illegal migrants and trafficking victims, after a report labeled them “ticking time bombs.”
The New Straits Times said that most of the 13 detention centers were not secure and that the detainee population of 7,000 — of which it said more than half were “hardcore criminals” — often found it easy to escape.
‘ONLY THREE’
“On a scale of one to 10, security at these camps is rated at only three,” it quoted immigration director-general Abdul Rahman Othman as saying.
“These camps are old and do not have proper security installations to house detainees,” he said according to the daily, which said some detainees were murderers and rapists awaiting deportation after serving jail time.
The home ministry’s top civil servant Mahmood Adam said it was developing a plan to tackle the situation and that a committee had been set up to review conditions.
“The situation in some of these depots are bad and the places are in urgent need of improvement,” he told reporters.
AFGHAN ESCAPE
Problems were highlighted by the case earlier this month of 20 Afghans, victims of a human trafficking syndicate, who escaped from the Kuala Lumpur airport immigration depot by cutting through security grilles.
“Previously, only one agency like the police or immigration were in charge of the depots and there were lapses in managing the depots, which is what led to the recent escape earlier this month,” Mahmood said.
“As of the August incident, there are now five agencies working together to administer and run the depots so the situation should improve as everyone is working together instead of independently,” he said.
FIRST STEPS
The home ministry boss said that anti-climbing fences and CCTV cameras will be installed at detention centers and that a report would be sent to Cabinet soon on further upgrading and security measures required.
“We must realize that these people in the depots are human beings and that they are also not prisoners. They must be treated humanely, they are not in prison so they shouldn’t be treated like they are,” he said.
Immigration activists say Malaysia is often used as a staging post for trafficking gangs moving people from Afghanistan and Myanmar to Indonesia and Australia.
And with one of Asia’s largest populations of foreign labor, Malaysia relies on some 2.2 million migrants to clean homes, care for children and work in plantations and factories.>
In months, Lo Yuet-ping would bid farewell to a centuries-old village he has called home in Hong Kong for more than seven decades. The Cha Kwo Ling village in east Kowloon is filled with small houses built from metal sheets and stones, as well as old granite buildings, contrasting sharply with the high-rise structures that dominate much of the Asian financial hub. Lo, 72, has spent his entire life here and is among an estimated 860 households required to move under a government redevelopment plan. He said he would miss the rich history, unique culture and warm interpersonal kindness that defined life in
AERIAL INCURSIONS: The incidents are a reminder that Russia’s aggressive actions go beyond Ukraine’s borders, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said Two NATO members on Sunday said that Russian drones violated their airspace, as one reportedly flew into Romania during nighttime attacks on neighboring Ukraine, while another crashed in eastern Latvia the previous day. A drone entered Romanian territory early on Sunday as Moscow struck “civilian targets and port infrastructure” across the Danube in Ukraine, the Romanian Ministry of National Defense said. It added that Bucharest had deployed F-16 warplanes to monitor its airspace and issued text alerts to residents of two eastern regions. It also said investigations were underway of a potential “impact zone” in an uninhabited area along the Romanian-Ukrainian border. There
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I