Malaysian Bar outraged by a woman detainee stripped naked and forced to do ear squats

Malaysian Bar outraged by a woman detainee stripped naked and forced to do ear squats

KUALA LUMUR, Thurs (8.10 pm): The popular internet news portal Malaysiakini today published on their website segments of a one-minute mobile phone video clip (minus the explicit footages) showing a woman being forced to strip naked and do ear squats in a police station. Still pictures taken from the clip were first published by the vernacular China Press on its frontpage today. Malaysiakini reported that the one-minute-and-11-second video clip shot in a Multimedia Messaging (MMS) format was shown to several MPs as well as reporters by DAP's Seputeh MP Teresa Kok at the Parliament lobby this morning. Several police officers later went to the press room in Parliament to view the video clip from the TV3 crew. In an immediate response, Bar Council Chairman Yeo Yang Poh said this is "absolutely shocking and despicable". It confirms, he said, what Malaysians have heard and believed all this while about the inhumane and degrading treatment of persons in custody. He asked, "does anyone really believe that this is just an isolated incident?" If that is the case, he said, then the many horror stories that have from time to time been told must be nothing more than pure lies made up by numerous persons of different persuasions at different places and different times, who although being strangers to one another have somehow conspired to lie in a similar pattern. He added that this must become a final wake-up call to the police and the authorities. Please wake up, he urged the police, from the sleepy state of repeated denials, and bravely acknowledge that there is a big problem that is a result of decades of neglect and gradual decay. Do not downplay the magnitude of the problem, he said. It is time for the Malaysian public to show its outrage. The Bar Council has repeatedly urged the authorities to conduct thorough, independent, transparent and accountable inquiries into incidents such as this one. Our calls have gone largely unheeded in the past. This time, he said, it must be heeded before it is too late. The clip showed a naked woman doing ear squats 10 times in front of a policewoman in what looked like a locker room of a police station. The unidentified detainee was shown later putting on her underwear and a black top. It is unclear who took the footage, which appeared to be taken without the knowledge of the two women through a window. At press time, police said they are probing the authenticity of the video clip.