ps- Another reminder: man detained for 8 years without trial under ISA.
Thought I’d reprint this TMI article on minors that are held under the Emergency Ordinance (EO).
The EO is much less known than the ISA, but I think it affects far more lives. It’s always good to broaden our fight to all types of detention without trial – one of the worst aspects of BN governance that they have shown no interest in changing.
There are hundreds of Malaysians suffering from indefinite detention. Even a few days being locked up is traumatic enough – imagine being held and never knowing when you may get released.
Even if you do get released, you may end up like Jiegandran here.
I think the cops should not be allowed to get lazy – as someone once told me, detention without trial just allows them to put people away without bothering to do proper investigations.
In the end, all sorts of innocents get caught in an indiscriminate dragnet.
Let’s not forget these easily forgotten Malaysians.
Arrested at 17, he was taken by the police and locked up for 60 days under the Emergency Ordinance before being banished. He was then brought to this sleepy hollow and left to fend for himself for the next two years.
“I am a labourer,” Jiegandran told The Malaysian Insider in a low voice.
In his first interview, the boy who should be getting ready to sit for the SPM examination this year but was expelled for being absent for three months from school, related his daily routine since being thrown out of his home state by the authorities.
The Selangor-born has been pulling 10-hour shifts at an oil palm estate for the last two months to earn RM15 a day.
The bulk of his wages go towards food. The rest of it is spent on paying for the calls home to his family on his prepaid cellphone. He no longer keeps in touch with his schoolmates.
He works daily, from 8am to 7pm, before returning to the company quarters he currently shares with two Indonesian workmates.
Jiegandran has to be in the house by 8pm and remain there until 6am the next day, under the strict terms of the banishment order.
He washes his clothes while they take care of dinner, which is usually ready by 9pm.
His kitchen skills are limited to making instant noodles and frying eggs, so he pays his housemates for his share of the evening meal. Breakfast and lunch are provided for by the “tauke” at the plantation.
“We eat rice, curry, vegetables. Sometimes fish,” the thin boy described.
“It’s OK,” he shrugged, but added, it was nothing like his mother’s cooking.
His eyes darted to his mother sitting across the table from him at a Malay food stall in what passes for Linggi town — two rows of double-storey shophouses huddled around a T-junction.
Sumathy Ramasamy, 44, who works as a cook in a university near Broga, looked away.
The mother of three last visited her middle child two weeks ago and promised him a slap-up meal to make up for missing his birthday, but failed to keep her word.
Jiegandran turned 18 on May 22.
His employer gave him an extra RM20 for the occasion and offered to buy him a birthday cake. Jiegandran declined.
All in, the working life is alright, the boy said. No one bullies him at the estate even though he is the youngest there.
But Jiegandran misses home.
“Life here is hard. I want to go home,” said the boy who — before this — had never before spent a night away from his family in Semenyih.
Jiegandran who has no history of causing trouble in school, let alone a criminal record, is challenging the home ministry’s harsh order, which is normally served on suspected terrorists and hardcore gangsters, in court.
But precedent may be against him.
Another 17-year-old boy from Pahang, who two years ago had been detained under the Emergency Ordinance (EO), had also taken the home ministry to court, but lost.
“I remember it because he was sent to Simpang Renggam the day before the general election,” Suaram co-ordinator, E. Nalini, told The Malaysian Insider.
The Pahang boy is now spending time in a prison in Machap, Kelantan.
The human rights watchdog has been championing the fight against detentions without trials.
Nalini is also not sure how many children under 18 have been detained and claimed the ministry has been very secretive over the statistics.
Thought I’d reprint this TMI article on minors that are held under the Emergency Ordinance (EO).
The EO is much less known than the ISA, but I think it affects far more lives. It’s always good to broaden our fight to all types of detention without trial – one of the worst aspects of BN governance that they have shown no interest in changing.
There are hundreds of Malaysians suffering from indefinite detention. Even a few days being locked up is traumatic enough – imagine being held and never knowing when you may get released.
Even if you do get released, you may end up like Jiegandran here.
I think the cops should not be allowed to get lazy – as someone once told me, detention without trial just allows them to put people away without bothering to do proper investigations.
In the end, all sorts of innocents get caught in an indiscriminate dragnet.
Let’s not forget these easily forgotten Malaysians.
*
Teenager Jiegandran Panir Selvam has been grounded. Not by his parents, but by the home ministry.Arrested at 17, he was taken by the police and locked up for 60 days under the Emergency Ordinance before being banished. He was then brought to this sleepy hollow and left to fend for himself for the next two years.
“I am a labourer,” Jiegandran told The Malaysian Insider in a low voice.In his first interview, the boy who should be getting ready to sit for the SPM examination this year but was expelled for being absent for three months from school, related his daily routine since being thrown out of his home state by the authorities.
The Selangor-born has been pulling 10-hour shifts at an oil palm estate for the last two months to earn RM15 a day.
The bulk of his wages go towards food. The rest of it is spent on paying for the calls home to his family on his prepaid cellphone. He no longer keeps in touch with his schoolmates.
He works daily, from 8am to 7pm, before returning to the company quarters he currently shares with two Indonesian workmates.
Jiegandran has to be in the house by 8pm and remain there until 6am the next day, under the strict terms of the banishment order.
He washes his clothes while they take care of dinner, which is usually ready by 9pm.
His kitchen skills are limited to making instant noodles and frying eggs, so he pays his housemates for his share of the evening meal. Breakfast and lunch are provided for by the “tauke” at the plantation.
“We eat rice, curry, vegetables. Sometimes fish,” the thin boy described.
“It’s OK,” he shrugged, but added, it was nothing like his mother’s cooking.
His eyes darted to his mother sitting across the table from him at a Malay food stall in what passes for Linggi town — two rows of double-storey shophouses huddled around a T-junction.
Sumathy Ramasamy, 44, who works as a cook in a university near Broga, looked away.
The mother of three last visited her middle child two weeks ago and promised him a slap-up meal to make up for missing his birthday, but failed to keep her word.
Jiegandran turned 18 on May 22.
His employer gave him an extra RM20 for the occasion and offered to buy him a birthday cake. Jiegandran declined.
All in, the working life is alright, the boy said. No one bullies him at the estate even though he is the youngest there.
But Jiegandran misses home.
“Life here is hard. I want to go home,” said the boy who — before this — had never before spent a night away from his family in Semenyih.
Jiegandran who has no history of causing trouble in school, let alone a criminal record, is challenging the home ministry’s harsh order, which is normally served on suspected terrorists and hardcore gangsters, in court.
But precedent may be against him.
Another 17-year-old boy from Pahang, who two years ago had been detained under the Emergency Ordinance (EO), had also taken the home ministry to court, but lost.
“I remember it because he was sent to Simpang Renggam the day before the general election,” Suaram co-ordinator, E. Nalini, told The Malaysian Insider.
The Pahang boy is now spending time in a prison in Machap, Kelantan.
The human rights watchdog has been championing the fight against detentions without trials.
Nalini is also not sure how many children under 18 have been detained and claimed the ministry has been very secretive over the statistics.
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