EVEN in the festive mood of the Lunar New Year celebration, when even a political geek like myself would generally eschew political news for a moment of reprieve, I could not help but break my silence when I heard news of a senior police officers demanding corporal punishment for undocumented migrants.

What was most distressing was that aside from Seputeh MP Teresa Kok and rights activist Adrian Pereira, there were few other voices prepared to argue against the use of inhumane punishment or or directly challenge the views of Internal Security and Public Order director Hazani Ghazali on the efficacy of whipping as a deterrence against crime.

Talk of torture and other degrading punishment, such as whipping and caning, is not the average Malaysian’s cup of tea and it doesn’t help that society appears to be condoning the acts by keeping silent or avoiding the subject.

Malaysia has not ratified the Convention Against Torture and even worst, it believes in the use of torture and other degrading punishments to deliver justice or to deter crime.

This is why despite the grave violation of human rights, Malaysia as a whole still  tolerate – or some even wholeheartedly support – the use of force and intimidation during questioning and investigation and in judicial caning and in corporal punishment to discipline children.

So what prevents ministers, MPs or even civil society from talking about it and raising it to the national limelight?

Aside from the sensitivity of the issue, incidence of torture has not garnered enough public attention mostly because it always happened during an individual’s suspension of liberty in lock ups where there is no witness to establish any facts other than the victim and victimizer, which render the task of documenting and monitoring torture cases difficult.

Having said that, the well documented, gruesome deaths of Ganapathy and alleged torture in Jelebu prison in 2021 alone revealed that Malaysia does have a problem with torture.

Then why torture has been allowed to happen? Unlike Philippines and other countries which has a specific anti-torture act that criminalizes torture, there is no legislation in place to forbid torture and the closest legislation to a torture offence are confined to Sections 330 and 331 of the Penal Code.

Though both provisions make voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt to extort confession or compel restoration of property an offence, it suffers from making explicit mention of torture and has rarely functioned adequately as a deterrent to torture.  

There is also the little matter of the workings of police institutions which intimidate those who expose police abuse and the reluctance of the police force to be subjected to independent investigation.

The police have actually raided Freedom Film Network’s office for showing a short documentary describing a teenager who has suffered police torture and the police has since mobilized and resisted the now defunct PH government’s attempt to install an independent police misconduct commission.

All this had only ensured the survival of the practice of torture or other ill-practice from police, and such violations would not be properly held accountable

While Malaysians are generally appalled by deaths in police custody, I was repeatedly asked by those same people “what is wrong with the use of some force and intimidation against an alleged criminal so long it helps in the investigation?”. 

This paradoxical thought is not just morally erroneous but also deeply misguided because while not all deaths in police custody is due to police abuse, any deaths because of misconduct or foul play must contain some elements of torture.

If you wish to reduce the scandalous number of deaths in custody in Malaysia, the sure-fire way is to ensure the occurrence of torture is less likely to happen.

Yet, our attitude towards the use of torture or act of force to either stop or deter crimes has left a lot to be desired.

There is no shortage of supporters on social media when a certain mosque committee member decided to mete out a degrading punishment of “mandi jenazah” on a teenager caught stealing money.

The act of stealing is a crime that if it was caught would surely be penalised appropriately, but the act committed by the mosque member is certainly excessive, inhumane and frankly another form of torture practice.

There is also another recent incident where a civilian just took justice into his own hands by choking a theft suspect to death in Ipoh.

Most bizarrely, there are video recordings that suggest the police were present throughout the incident and did not make enough effort to stop the murder in open public.

There are certainly a lot more the government can do to prevent torture and by ratifying the Convention Against Torture, the government could send a message both to the national and international body that Malaysia has a zero tolerance towards torture.

There is also the culture of inflicting severe pain or suffering in the name of discipline and justice that we Malaysians must also eradicate.

After all, if we ourselves do not subscribe to a torture-free society, how are we able to convince the government to do likewise? – February 6, 2022.

* Kenneth Cheng has always been interested in the interplay between human rights and government but more importantly he is a father of two cats, Tangyuan and Toufu. When he is not attending to his feline matters, he is most likely reading books about politics and human rights or playing video games. He is a firm believer in the dictum “power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will”.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.