KUALA LUMPUR, March 17 — The Malaysian Bar passed a resolution today calling for a Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Perlis “death camps” and the alleged cover-up attempt by law enforcement agencies.
The body also urged the government to implement legal and policy reforms as part of its obligations under international laws against human trafficking, while also demanding the rights of trafficked persons be protected.
The resolution followed a motion to debate at the Bar’s annual general meeting today on a New Straits Times report published last year that alleged collusion on the part of local law enforcement agencies with human trafficking syndicates.
“The Malaysian Bar call upon the government of Malaysia to take all necessary steps to ensure that such tragedies never recur within our borders, including… establishment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry to investigate the existence of the mass graves and death camps,” the resolution read.
It added that the investigation must also determine if there was a cover up attempt, complicity, collusion, corruption of law enforcement agencies. The Bar was also calling for the perpetrators to identified.
New Straits Times in an expose published December last year alleged there that had been a “massive, coordinated cover up” of the mass graves and “death camps” discovered along the hilly Malaysian-Thai border in 2015.
The NST report alleged “serious redacting” in the investigation reports as well as corruption by border security officials who reportedly took bribes from syndicates.
Malaysian authorities believe the number of those who died at the camp — used as a transit point to smuggle people into Malaysia or other countries — were in the hundreds.
It was discovered following a tip off.
The Malaysian Bar in its resolution said it was outraged by the discovery.
It also noted that the government has yet to charge anyone for the crime, and is calling for the police to disclose fully the extent of the crime.
It is also seeking an inquiry by the National Human Rights Commission.
“The Malaysian Bar call on the Royal Malaysia Police to fully disclose the extent of these crimes and the various personalities involved and to take necessary steps to thoroughly investigate and bring those responsible for these heinous crime to task,” read the resolution.
