Suara Rakyat Malaysia (Suaram) launched their 2008 Human Right's Report today, saying that Malaysia's human rights situation last year reflected the failure of the government to implement promised reforms.

NONE Suaram representatives, who presented the body's annual report this morning, included chairperson K Arumugam, secretariat member Lee Khai Loon and John Liu, the documentation and monitoring coordinator.

Liu summarised the report, highlighting Suaram's three main concerns:

(a) The increasing lack of accountability of law enforcement agencies, which has resulted in serious human rights violations

(b) The heightened politicisation of race and religion which further hampered the state of humans rights in the country

(c) The government's failure to heed strong calls and demands for reformation

Arumugam said that Malaysia's human rights situation was deteriorating and that the government had yet to take any measures to rectify the situation.

NONE "We will never be happy as long as these violations are still continuing," he said.

Abuse of power

Liu also brought up several cases which he claimed was proof of police abuse of power.

He cited the example of A Kugan who died in police custody early this year and a 2003 case of Ulaganathan Muniandy who also died in custody.

According to Suaram statistics, there were 13 deaths in police custody last year and 255 deaths recorded in prisons.

Suaram also reported that 44 people died in what he termed as "unnecessary police shootings" in 2008, with possibly more cases unreported by the media.

NONE Arumugam also said "This year, we have already recorded at least five deaths in police custody. Just last week, the death of Teoh Beng Hock while in the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) premises leaves little doubt that there is an urgent need to ensure greater accountability of our law enforcement agencies."

The Internal Security Act (ISA) was also crticised during the launch of the report.

According to the report, in 2008, there were 10 ISA arrests, 34 releases and 20 renewed detention orders.

Number 132 in world press

Liu also mentioned that Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) ranked Malaysia 132 on a list of 195 countries on their press freedom index.

NONE He also brought up Malaysia's recent black listing for human trafficking of by a United States committee, which was later refuted by Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak.

"What we are seeing now under Najib's new premiership is that he has announced several measures which are populist in nature, they look good and at a superficial level seems promising. But it is still early to assess if any real or meaningful improvements have been made (by Najib)," said Liu.

Speaking to reporters later, he said "Despite the growing calls for reform, not only has the government failed to reform, but they have repeated violations that were committed 10 years ago."

On Teoh's royal commission

When asked on the cabinet's decision to set up an inquest for Teoh's death, Arumugam said this was just a political decision to appease the Chinese community, as he further questioned why there wasn't an inquest for Kugan's death.

NONE "Suaram will continue to press the government to let a royal commission investigate Teoh's death, and not just MACC's methods" said Arumugam.

Suaram also urged the government to set up a Coroner's Court to look into all deaths in custody instead of just inquests.

This is because the inquests set up may not be independent enough, and a Coroner's Act would ensure that the inquests would be held within a month of each death in custody.