KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 26 — All six deaths at the Juru immigration detention centre since last year were caused by illnesses, the Enforcement Agency Integrity Commission (EAIC) said today as it discounted allegations of abuse.
The commission, which monitors complaints of misconduct against enforcement agencies, said it did a surprise visit at the Penang detention centre last Monday, where it interviewed 10 female detainees, one of whom, a Cambodian woman, claimed that immigration officers had treated her well.
“The EAIC concludes that allegations that five Cambodian and two Vietnamese women had died due to abuse by immigration officers at the Juru immigration detention centre, Penang, are clearly baseless,” the EAIC said in a statement.
A report by Cambodian newspaper The Cambodia Daily earlier this month quoted a Cambodian woman detained this year at Juru who alleged that three female detainees were beaten to death at the depot and another four had died at a hospital, totalling seven women — five Cambodians and two Vietnamese.
The EAIC found that five foreigners comprising two Indonesians, a Cambodian, a Bangladeshi and a Myanmarese aged between 22 and 49 died at Juru last year due to sepsis, which is the complication of an infection, and pneumonia.
One death recorded at the Bukit Mertajam depot up to June this year was that of a 26-year-old Cambodian woman, who had died while receiving treatment at a hospital due to hypokalaemia, or the lack of salt in the bloodstream.
The EAIC said 17 Cambodian women were detained at Juru from December 2015 to June this year, all of whom had been sent back to their home country on July 13.
The EAIC, however, found overcrowding at the detention centre that was made for a capacity of 500 people, 350 men and 150 women.
“During our visit, we found 595 detainees at the depot comprising 472 male and 123 female detainees,” said the EAIC.
A majority of the detainees came from Myanmar at 289 people, followed by Indonesia (100), and Bangladesh (94), and other countries including China, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan, India, Vietnam, the Philippines, Palestine, Nigeria, Brazil, Laos and Cambodia.
The EAIC also found that all 19 CCTVs at Juru have not been working since 2014 due to financial problems.
“The EAIC will write to the Home Ministry and to the Immigration Department director-general to pay serious attention and take immediate action to fix the current facilities and old buildings at the Juru immigration detention centre, as well as to hasten construction works of the new building for the centre,” said the EAIC.
