Jeevan’s speech at annual briefing on Malaysian Indian minority & Human Rights Violations 2010 for foreign embassies on 3/3/2011.

Overview of Human Rights

A year has passed since we last had the opportunity to brief the foreign and diplomatic mission, we are sad to say that little has changed for the Indian poor, and in fact things have deteriorated even further. This has been the perennial story of the Indian poor in this country since independence in 1957, 53 years ago.

The Indian poor in this country are viewed with derision by not only the government, but by the elite of all communities in this country. They are the real underclass. The fact that hundreds of thousands of them do not even have the right to an identity, which means they do not even possess a single officially acceptable document that identifies them as a citizen of the country, does not bother the vast majority in this country the least bit. That they are not able to go to school,

Our 2010 Malaysian Indian minority and human rights violation report touches on 17 separate areas of gross neglect and abuse of the rights of the Indian poor. It chronicles everything from citizenship to housing to suicide, but more than that, it tells the true story of how hundreds of thousands of souls, are made to live a life of poverty, of hunger, of fear and distrust, of lives taken brutally by the minions of those in power, in short, it tells a story that has no right to be told in this day and age, in a country that has all the outward trappings of wealth like Malaysia.

On the human rights front, this is what the US State department for 2009 says, Longstanding government policies gave preferences to ethnic Malays in many areas. Some employers exploited through forced labour migrant workers and ethnic Indian-Malaysians. Some child labour occurred in plantations.”

The Indian poor in this country can actually find themselves in the same boat as the illegal migrant workers, and even their children are being exploited, which is nothing more than a polite term for slavery, in the plantations.

The state promotion of the malay Muslim Supremacy agenda, sees an administration that is nearly 95% Malay muslim, all of them further indoctrinated under the government run ‘civics bureau, the Biro Tata Negara, to become like the all white administration of Apartheid South Africa a couple of decades ago.

Examples of Racism:

1. Applications for entitlements are rejected on slightest reason.

2. Ensuring information on entitlements are blocked out from the eligible Indians.

3. Ensuring it is difficult for the Indian Malaysian poor to register as citizens of the country.

4. Ensure that lower level policies are in line with the overall racist bent of the higher level policies.

5. Ensure statistics of the disbursements or acceptance or selections are kept away from the non-Malays –Indians.

6. Ensure interpretation of policies is such as to disfavour Indians. On the abuse by the security forces, we will share some cases now.

• Babu a 28 year old orphan who surrendered himself voluntarily to Police in Jempol on a suspected petty robbery case on the 24th January 2010 was found dead in a Police lock up a week later under mysterious circumstances. He allegedly hanged himself but the Police were not willing to disclose the findings of a CCTV linked to the cell on requests of NGO’s representing Babu’s family. (Malaysiakini 3rd February)Police denied any wrongdoing. Two brothers were shot dead on the 4^th of may 2010 by the police in taiping.

• On June 14th 2010 A Gnanapragasam, 53, died in Police custody. He had previously complained to a Magistrate who heard his remand proceedings that he was beaten in custody. His wife met him the Friday before and noticed he had beatings mark. No inquest was held to determine the cause of his death. On July 16 2010, police arrested R Gunasegaran, who died in custody at the Sental Police Station approximately two or three hours after his arrest. An initial autopsy found that Gunasegaran died of a drug overdose. Several witnesses claimed he was beaten in police custody The inquest into the cause of his death was inconclusive despite presence of various wounds and injuries to the body.

• An eyewitness to the above inquest was subsequently arrested by the police at his home in the presence of his family who witnessed him being beaten by the police who then took the eyewitness into custody. On 8 November 2010, police shot and killed five ethnic Indian youths aged 17 to 24. The police described them as members of a criminal gang who fired first; however, an outcry, particularly from the Indian community questioned the police ‘shoot to kill’ policy. At year’s end there had been no known official inquiry into the matter On 22/11/10 K. Kalaiselvan (21) was believed to have been murdered by the Malay members of the police force at the Kota Tinggi, Johor, police station. But the cause of death has been reported (covered up) to be lung congestion. (see New straits Times 17/12/2010 at page 22).

The very next day,

• Mahalingam (35) was similarly believed to have been killed by the police at the Nibong Tebal police station on 23/11/10 and to cover up the police placed the blame on five other fellow detainees and sent them away to the Simpang Renggam Prison to be detained without trial for two years and thereafter indefinitely. (see Makkal Osai 7/12/10 at page 7). On the 13^th of December, a 13 year old girl, G. Karpagam who complained to the police that her brother was stabbed was in turn locked up with adults at the Ipoh police station (see Makkal Osai 13/12/2010 at page 13).

• In the sedition trial of human right lawyer P.Uthayakumar on 30/11/10 (humanrightspartymalaysia.com 1/12/10) the Deputy Federal police criminal investigations department Director DCP Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani testified in effect that the Indians are disproportionately 60% higher in comparison to the local in population that are killed in police lock ups and shot dead by the police. The Indian poor are deemed to have no rights in the eyes of the Malaysian authorities, not even the right to life. When it comes to the way Malaysia practices freedom of religion, this is how it goes Rani, 56, has been struggling for the past thirty years to get her Muslim name and religious status changed to Hindu. Rani was only a sixteen-day-old baby when she was given away by her Muslim biological mother to a Hindu neighbour family due to extreme poverty. Rani’s Hindu adopted father brought her up as a Hindu. Her marriage registration application was rejected and her Hindu husband was forcefully taken away, circumcised and converted. He agreed to the conversion after he was threatened with jail sentence if he refused to convert to Islam. As a consequence, Rani’s children as well as her grandchildren have all been denied their Birth Certificates even after thirty years of struggling as they are all practicing Hinduism. In an interview with HRP, Rani’s famiy threatened to commit suicide should they be forced to convert.

• According to Rani, once when they applied to change their religion, the Islamic authorities told them if they converted to Islam, they will get all the special privileges and if they refused, their bodies would be snatched upon deaths regardless of them having lived their lives as staunch Hindus. This is just the tip of the iceberg to the countless Indians who have been forced to convert out of Hinduism to Islam. On poverty, this is how it goes Despite government claims that less than 4% Malaysians live on poverty line – NST,16.07.10,pg 22) and extreme poverty line (EPH) is to be eradicated by year end; Three ethnic Indian children aged 6, 7 and 9 were forced to eat sand to abate their hunger (NST, 19.06.10, pg9), 65% of Tamil school pupils fail their UPSR exams because of poverty related problems(Tamil Nesan, 6.11.10, pgN12 and HRP letter to Unicef (dated 18.06.10)

• an ethnic Indian woman due to her abject poverty, delivers her baby by the side of a drain in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur and cuts off the umbilical cord herself(Makkal Osai, 31.12.09 & The Star, 1.01.10, pg N45); There are 203,505 ethnic Indian households living in 2,670 estates nationwide (Sinar Harian,2.08.10,pages 26).

• An estimated 80% of these households would fall under the EPH, however the Government welfare and assistance programs do not reach them for a variety of reasons ranging from racist practices under the BTN trained civil servants, statelessness and the “make it difficult policy” at the relevant Government departments.

We could go on forever and a day chronicling the systemic neglect of the welfare and the rights of the Indian poor in this country. The government can take away their identity, their name, their religion and even their lives with impunity, while the rest of the country and the rest of the world sits idly watching.