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.>
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to