FOUR Afghan minors were hauled up before the Ampang Magistrates’ Court today after they were arrested for jogging on their residential premises, an act deemed to be in violation of the movement control order (MCO).

Magistrate Suzana Hussin set July 15 to hear the minors, aged 13, 15, 16 and 17, plead their case after the court appoints an Afghan-Persian interpreter for them.

No charges were read out. 

Deputy public prosecutor Syakieraah Zakaria did not offer bail, for which she said the children did not qualify as they were not Malaysian.

Suzana set bail at RM400 after lawyer Collin Arvin Andrew argued that regardless of whether the accused are citizens, they are children who live with their parents who are applying for resettlement.

The children, who are of the Hazara ethnic group from central Afghanistan, were apprehended on April 16 by Ampang Prima Condominium security guards, who locked them up in a room before calling the police. Within the hour, the cops arrived and the children were arrested.

The court was informed that the guards were acting on a complaint from an unidentified resident.  

The two older teens were detained a further seven days as they were still in the process of applying for United Nations High Commission For Refugees (UNHCR) refugee cards and thus held only their appointment cards that showed their mother’s identities.

“After taking them, the police should have released them,” said Collin after today’s proceedings. 

“They could have checked with UNHCR quickly and then released them. That would have been the most appropriate move when dealing with minors.”

The two jailed teenagers told The Malaysian Insight they were kept in the Ampang police station lockup the entire time and were not allowed visitors, including their parents. 

The children’s families are in the midst of applying for resettlement abroad. The family of the 13-year-old accused have received approval to resettle in New Zealand, just before the MCO put an end to travel on March 18. 

The boy said he would never leave his family’s apartment again, even after the lockdown has been lifted. 

“People stare at me all the time and some want to beat me because I am different,” said the boy, who said he wanted to be a pilot. 

Their parents have been jobless since the MCO was enforced.

Co-counsel Chan Yen Hui also told reporters she was notified of another case involving two 18-year-old Afghans from the same apartment complex.

They were arrested on April 1 and detained for two weeks before pleading guilty to violating the MCO and paying a fine of RM800 each.

“I fear this may just be an instance of a long-running discrimination they face at where they live,” said Elise Aryn Chen, programme co-ordinator at rights group Tenaganita, who acted as bailor today.

Suhakam’s commissioner for children Noor Aziah Mohd Awal has called on the police to cease arresting minors for MCO violations as it contravened the UN child rights convention ratified by Malaysia. 

Other minors arrested for a similar offence include Rohingya teens who were picked up when they left their homes in search for food. – May 8, 2020.