Suaram alleges death in police custody underreported
Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) has asserted that the number of undocumented cases of deaths in police custody was underreported in 2021.
Its senior programme officer Mohammad Alshatri said the home ministry did not classify several incidents as custodial deaths despite them fitting the criteria.
"The deaths of S Sivabalan at Gombak Police District Headquarters and Umar Faruq Abdullah at South Klang Police District Headquarters are examples of cases overlooked...
Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) has asserted that the number of undocumented cases of deaths in police custody was underreported in 2021.
Its senior programme officer Mohammad Alshatri said the Home Ministry did not classify several incidents as custodial deaths despite them fitting the criteria.
"The deaths of S Sivabalan at Gombak police district headquarters and Umar Faruq Abdullah at South Klang police district headquarters are examples of cases overlooked in these statistics," he was quoted by Malay Mail today.
"This raises the question of the definition of deaths by the home minister or police which provided the home minister with the data. We demand they use international standards and extend to deaths beyond police lockup as well as provide annual reports in all custodial centres," he said at the launching of Suaram's 'Human Rights Overview Report 2021'.
In its human rights report, Suaram said it has reason to believe that the number of police deaths in custody has been severely underreported when compared to those deaths that were documented or reported by media.
The Home Ministry said only one Malaysian Indian died in police custody during that period despite media reporting A Ganapathy and Sivabalan died within one month.
"The stated numbers clearly failed to take account of the two victims that were evidently cases of deaths in custody."
"The death of Ganapathy in Selayang Hospital due to injuries sustained while he was under the Gombak police custody and the death of Sivabalan as soon as he was arrested by the police from Gombak police station are examples of cases omitted by the Home Ministry," according to the report.
"The Home Ministry said six cases of deaths in police custody were reported between January and August 2021 while 28 cases of custodial deaths in immigration detention were recorded from January to Aug 23, 2021. The latest figure for the whole of 2020 stood at 37 deaths in custody," according to the report.
Highly inconsistent
Citing a few other reports, Suaram said the figure provided by the government on the death in custody was highly inconsistent.
"The parliamentary reply dated Nov 24, 2020, stated that custodial death for that year (2020) was 296," read the report.
Suaram itself identified a total of 19 deaths in custody that occurred between Jan 20 and Nov 16 via social media and news reports.
Ten of these cases had the official cause of death listed as 'medical reasons', three as 'suicide', three more as death from unspecified 'injuries' and two were 'not reported'.
Two cases were at the Gombak police station and the rest were at the police stations in Yan, Cheras, South Klang, Kota Bharu, and police district headquarters in Kuala Selangor, Kuala Langat, and Pekan.
One death involved an unnamed individual who passed away during a raid by the Sentul police on Oct 6.
