Is the grass outside Immigration detention centres greener?

FOCUS The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) and various human rights organisations have urged Malaysia to release the Myanmar refugees held in its detention centres without delay, after a one-year period had lapsed.

However, based on psst experience, and despite the deplorable conditions in the Immigration detention centres, things do not necessarily get easier for the refugees if they are released.

As of April this year, approximately 154,140 refugees from various countries were registered as residing in Malaysia, of which 139,780 (90.68 percent) came from Myanmar, of whom 53,410 were Rohingya people.

Some 68 percent of the refugees then were male, about 34,600 of them children, and an untold number of other refugees remain unregistered...