This child was found in an unnamed detention facility featured on the Al Jazeera 101 East documentary, titled “Malaysia’s Unwanted”

Serdang MP Ong Kian Ming has expressed disappointment over the reply by the Deputy Home Affairs Ministers Wan Junaidi on the human rights violations against refugees as captured by a recent documentary by Al Jazeera titled “Malaysia’s Unwanted” .

“The replies of the Deputy Minister of Home Affairs, Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaffar, showed that he is not aware of the seriousness of the accusations revealed in the Al Jazeera program even though he was interviewed in the program,” he said.

Ong was critical of the Minister’s reply, which he said ignored the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that Malaysia is one of the signatories to.

In his reply to Segambut MP Lim Lip Eng on the motion which was debated in Parliament yesterday, Wan Junaidi had said that the migrants were treated with ‘dignity’ when under detention. This was said in response to the allegations in the video that men are stripped and beaten when received by these centres.

“When they are sent to these centres, they have to undergo body checks and in instances where they have to remove all their clothing, they are given towels and sarong.

“This is done in rooms, not in an open area. Their dignity is preserved,” replied Wan Junaidi.

On the question of the UNCRC being breached with the detention of children in the facility, Wan Junaidi said that this was done on humanitarian grounds so that the child can be close to their parent.

However, Ong said that the video showed that an Afghani father was allowed to see his child only once a month, and that his child could not recognize him as the father. In this respect, Ong said that the humanitarian grounds referred by the Deputy Minister were ignored.

Ong also thinks that the lackluster responses by Wan Junaidi probably meant that he had not watched the video that exposed the mistreatment of migrants in the country.

“Perhaps the Deputy Minister has not even seen the documentary himself!”

Al Jazeera reporter wrong to pose as religious leader

Having been denied entry into the detention centre, Al Jazeera reporter Steve Chao posed as a religious leader to gain access into the facility.

Aside from defending the living conditions of the refugees in the facilities, Wan Junaidi had also lashed out at Steve Chao, Al Jazeera reporter, for going in undercover as a priest to be allowed into the centers to meet the refugees.

“We allow religious leaders of all faiths to go in, but when we do this, we are cheated instead,” he said.

In the documentary, Steve Chao said that he had done so because his team was initially denied entry into the facility.

Upon access, the documentary had revealed refugees, both women and men, chained, handcuffed and squatting on the ground who said that they were not given sufficient food or water. There was also a store in the centre; selling toothpaste and instant noodles for those who had the money to buy these items.

Those who had been released from the facility said that even drinking water was hard to come by, forcing them to drink out of the tank used to otherwise flush water down the toilet bowl.

Despite the unsettling scenes and confessions of abuse amongst those detained captured on camera, Wan Junaidi insisted that the dignity of the migrants were preserved. -The Rocket

*The documentary can be seen on Al Jazeera’s youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdV3sj76vnA