Last Sunday, The Star:
I do know however, what kind of conditions exist in these detention camps, and I can’t say for sure whether I wouldn’t riot myself after a few weeks or months in one of them.
No one likes violence, and we should never be looking for reasons to justify it.
I suspect however, that the key to avoiding situations like this ‘riot’ is to make the living conditions at such camps MUCH more humane, or entirely revisit our approach to undocumented migrants.
The unimaginably cramped, dirty, unhygenic living conditions may be less different from concentration camps than we would like to think.
We can all relate to the nobility of the repressed in movies like Cool Hand Luke (recently on Astro), The Shawshank Redemption, Felon, and so on, but when similar things may be happening on our soil, the media likes to pain less than flattering pictures of ‘riots’ and ‘ruckuses’.
I could be wrong, but I think what happened in Kuala Berang is what would happen to any group of humans subject for such long, indeterminate periods of most brutal inhumanity.
KUALA BERANG: Some 200 illegal immigrants from Vietnam and Myanmar went on a riot at the Ajil detention camp late last night.To be fair, I don’t really know what happened.
It is believed that the immigrants had tried to torch the main administration building at the camp at around 9.15pm, sparking a melee.
It is also learnt that several of the immigrants were also injured during the incident and had been warded at the Hulu Terengganu Hospital.
Several teams of Federal Reserve Unit personnel in anti-riot gear were also rushed to the scene to quell the riot from their headquarters in Kuala Terengganu.
It is not known however if the authorities had used tear gas to quell the riots but at press time, the area was still being condorned off and the police were still manning roadblocks on the road leading towards the camp.
As at press time, no reason had been given for the riot and police officers were seen at the site still negotiating with the group inside.
In 2005, 131 Thai Muslims who were seeking temporary shelter from unrest in Southern Thailand were housed in Ajil camp.
While on July 1 last year, 700 Myanmar illegals had caused a ruckus at Semenyih camp.
I do know however, what kind of conditions exist in these detention camps, and I can’t say for sure whether I wouldn’t riot myself after a few weeks or months in one of them.
No one likes violence, and we should never be looking for reasons to justify it.
I suspect however, that the key to avoiding situations like this ‘riot’ is to make the living conditions at such camps MUCH more humane, or entirely revisit our approach to undocumented migrants.
The unimaginably cramped, dirty, unhygenic living conditions may be less different from concentration camps than we would like to think.
We can all relate to the nobility of the repressed in movies like Cool Hand Luke (recently on Astro), The Shawshank Redemption, Felon, and so on, but when similar things may be happening on our soil, the media likes to pain less than flattering pictures of ‘riots’ and ‘ruckuses’.
I could be wrong, but I think what happened in Kuala Berang is what would happen to any group of humans subject for such long, indeterminate periods of most brutal inhumanity.
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