The Civil Rights Committee of the Kuala Lumpur and Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall (CRC-KLSCAH) will organize a public hearing on 16 August 2007 (Thursday) with the theme ‘Do you agree to strengthen Rela’.
UPDATE: Dato’ Siva (SUHAKAM) and Dr. Irene Fernandez (Tenaganita) will attend the hearing, and respond.
Details of the forum are as follows:
Date: 16 August 2007 (Thursday)
Time: 8 pm
Venue: Auditorium, KLSCAH (1 Jalan Maharajalela, , 50150 Kuala Lumpur.) (beside the Monorail stesen Maharajalela)
For details ,please visit
http://www.scah.org.my/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=261&forum=16&jump=1
Language: English and Malay
Rela (The volunteer corps) is a body formed up and governed by the Emergency (Stipulated Powers) Act 1964 (Ikatan Relawan Rakyat), which is operating as a division under the Home Affairs Ministry. The role of Rela includes social development, social security and crime prevention. Since 2005, Rela was given tremendous powers to clamp down on illegal immigrants, for instance to go equipped with arms, seize and arrest a person, and enter and search premises without a warrant. 。
Recently, the Home Affairs Ministry announced that a new bill for Rela - the volunteer corps - will be tabled in parliament by the end of the year. The ministry has proposed to strengthen Rela by setting up a new department to facilitate its operations and raids against illegal immigrants. The KLSCAH Civil Rights Committee is concerned about this approach due to the notorious past track record of Rela in relation to nabbing illegal immigrants, where serious human rights abuse cases were lodged by local rights groups.
Hence, the hearing will be a good opportunity for local residents, migrant workers and refugees to share their experience of dealing with Rela. Eventually, constructive public opinions collected will be compiled and submitted to the Home Affairs Minister and members of parliament for consideration. We believe that a constitutional democratic system would always appreciate the public’s opinion on national administration and ensure participatory democracy.
For further info,please contact Mr Chan 03-22746645.
RELA
“The Ministry is planning to table the Bill on RELA in parliament this year which will make RELA as a full fledge law enforcement departmentâ€. (Amnesty International, Malaysia)
First, doesn’t Immigration have its own enforcement department, why do need another department to help them. Surely rounding up illegals should also be done by the Police Department. Any enforcement department is considered as highly specialised and sensitive and should rightly be directly accountable and responsible within the purview of its own department ie the Immigration and the Police, we would hope that they have the skills and are adequately trained to do this job.
Some of us have witnessed their modus operandi of RELA, many a time, they have behaved in an unruly manner while apprehending foreigners, sometimes not even checking if the status of these foreigners, some of whom are legally in the country. What they sometimes do is racial profiling, catch any African they can find on the street, even students with valid visas have been known to be rounded up. They are then chained, put into their trucks and exposed to really rough treatment. At times their belongings go missing in the bargain, money, watches and wallets included. Then again, who consitutes to members of RELA, are they qualified to do the duties of the enforcement? Do they have the experience and the training to do their duties.
Giving RELA more power is like having vigilante justice on the streets. There have been many complaints with regard to their highhanded and incompetent behaviour. They give a bad impression and image to the foreigners many of whom contribute to the growth of the country, some of whom are here as investors, as tourists, as students and as employees with valid travel documents. There have been reports in the media on this, what has been done to resolve these issues.
One has to now ask, what qualifications, experience and training is being imparted to RELA, to ensure that there is no misuse of power and authority and ensure the good name of the country is maintained.
Immigration and Police should catch the illegals and send them back to their own countries and for goodness sake forget about giving illegals PR or amnesty, remember some of them have contributed to the crime in this country.
Let immigration and the Police force be given a bigger budget to employ more staff thus reducing unemployment and be responsible for its own functions, its high time that the buck stop passing around.
To the law makers, there have been enough of complaints with regard to RELA, be sure that enough research has gone in and all options properly considered,
prior to passing the law. In actual fact we do not need another enforcement department, when the immigration and police force already have operational enforcement departments under them?