PAKATAN Harapan can put a stop to preventable deaths in police custody by setting up an Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission (IPCMC), said Institutional Reform Committee member Ambiga Sreenevasan.

“There is already a draft legislation prepared by the last Royal Commission of Inquiry. That commission took several months to conduct a thorough study and came out with a comprehensive report. 

“All they need to get going is there. There is no reason why they cannot announce in the next few days a special taskforce or the steps to set up the IPCMC.

“Let that be the Malaysia Day gift to the country,” said Ambiga during the launch of the report Five Faces: A Story of Police Custodial Deaths in Malaysia by Lawyers for Liberty in Petaling Jaya today.

Some 284 detainees have died in police custody from 2000 to 2016, the most high-profile case being that of car theft suspect A. Kugan in 2009.

Ambiga joined DAP veteran Lim Kit Siang, former Bersih chair and Petaling Jaya MP Maria Chin Abdullah and human rights activists who have called on Putrajaya over the past few months to set up the IPCMC and fulfil its promise to implement institutional reform. 

A Royal Commission of Inquiry was set up in 2004 to look into police misconduct. After receiving more than 900 complaints of police abuses, it made 125 recommendations, including the setting up of the IPCMC, in its 576-page report in 2005.

Southeast Asia human rights watchdog Fortify Rights legal director Eric Paulsen said Putrajaya had yet to approach civil society on the topic of police reform. 

“We haven’t heard anything. No one has been called for consultation. It’s been four months. I think they need to get cracking. Every death in custody should be taken seriously,” said Paulsen.

He said that the Home Ministry should also take custodial deaths in detention centres and prisons seriously as some 1,654 people have died in prisons from 2010 to February 2017. 

“How difficult it is to provide clean water (in prisons and detention centres)? To make sure conditions are hygienic, that detainees are provided with adequate food, shelter?” said the human rights lawyer. 

The Health Ministry must also take disciplinary action against pathologists who cover up cases of custodial deaths, he said.

Lawyers for Liberty executive director Latheefa Koya said it was unacceptable for errant police officers responsible for these deaths to be walking free. – September 14, 2018.