Not right to detain teens under EO, says Suhakam

The Star
By SHAILA KOSHY

KUALA LUMPUR: The young, especially those who are in their teens, should be put on trial if they have committed a crime and not be detained under the Emergency (Public Order and Prevention of Crime) Ordinance (EO).

Suhakam commissioner Muhammad Sha'ani Abdullah said there were 30 youths, aged between 16 and 21, detained for various offences at the Rehabilitation Centre in Machang, Kelantan, when the commission visited on April 13.

He said the use of preventive detention on children contravened the Child Act, which defines children as those under 18, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which defines them as persons up to the age of 18.

“The EO should not be used on children. They must be charged in court or they must be released,” said Sha'ani, who reiterated Suhakam's stand that detention without trial was a violation of human rights.

Of the 30, he said, five were suspected of stealing motorcycles, three of breaking into a house/car, one of buying a stolen motorcycle, one of causing a death in a fight, and 20 of being involved in gang fights, robbery or armed/gang robbery.

He wrote to the Home Ministry, Inspector-General of Police, Welfare Department, Prison Commissioner-General and Attorney-General's Chambers about their findings but had yet to get a reply.

Asked whether the detainees had expressed any hope to the Suhakam commissioners and officers who interviewed them, he said 24 were keen on continuing their schooling either there or after their release, taking the PMR or SPM, or picking up some vocational/skills training.

“A few complained that there was limited reading materials,” he said.

Asked whether any had made representations to the Advisory Board for a review, Sha'ani replied: “None of the 30 we interviewed had legal representation at any stage.”

“What's the point in having the right to be told of the accusation against you, possibility of release through a habeas corpus petition or the right to make a representation if you don't know about them, the authorities don't tell you and you have no lawyer to advise you?”

Before 2005, several cases collapsed after trial judges threw out caution statements on grounds police may have coerced the confessions.

Sha'ani reckons the 2007 amendment to the Criminal Procedure Code abolishing cautioned statements could be why many suspects of motorcycle theft end up as EO detainees.

“The police can't rely on a confession any more.

“By using the EO, they circumvent the A-G's Chambers and the court,” he added.

In March, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which had been invited here last year by the Government, said the same in its report to the UN.