Drug-induced insanity gets migrant deported

Rather than coming home rich, an Indonesian migrant worker from West Nusa Tenggara returned to his home village barely able to speak his name after being deported by the Malaysian authorities earlier this month.

Sahdi, 34, a resident of Jago, a remote village in a mountainous region in Praya district, Central Lombok, has been acting strangely since his arrival home on Oct. 14, 2003.

"My mother collapsed after seeing Sahdi, who was sent home with an escort of Malaysian police officers. He was dressed in dirty robes and had a pair of different colored sandals on. He was still handcuffed. Sahdi then told my mother about how he had been injected with a mood-altering drug before being deported," Sahdi's youngest brother, Sahrizal, told The Jakarta Post at his home here recently.

Sahdi is still displaying symptoms of abnormality, even though he appears to be gradually getting better after two weeks of medical treatment from nurse employed by the state psychiatric hospital in Mataram.

"At nights, he likes staying outside. He keeps talking to himself about his problems and the situation where he used to work. He often talks about how he mediated between the two sides in a brawl among his fellow Indonesian workers, and how he was put in a detention center in Kuantan. He has also mentioned the names of the Malaysian officers who gave him the drug injection," said Sahrizal.

Sahdi said he was employed on a plantation belonging to Felda Plantation Sdn. Bhd. in Jerantut, Pahang, Malaysia.

He said that he was put into a detention center after he was blamed for causing a quarrel among a number of other Indonesian workers in the plantation, and for demanding that their employer pay the workers six-months salary each.

"It's true Pak, I was blamed for the quarrel although I was only trying to mediate between the workers involved. Our employer Ah Lai also did not like me as I asked him to pay our salaries for six months," he told the Post.

He added that his employer had frequently spoken rudely to the Indonesian workers as they had asked him for their wages on a number of occasions.

According to Sahdi, the Indonesian workers were paid not on a daily basis but rather based on the number of oil palm stems they cut. They were paid 80 cents for each stem.

Sahdi said further that after being released from the detention house, he met with his employer to ask for the workers' wages, "but, later, he called up the police to have me arrested based on the excuse that I was causing trouble in the company."

"I was arrested again and put in Kuantan prison," he said.

"I was given an injection when I started shouting in my cell to protest against my employer's mistreatment of me. After the injection, I became unconscious. I don't remember what happened after that until I was examined by a psychiatrist at the Permai Psychiatric Hospital in Johor Baru," he recounted. He said he had also been asked about his religion before he was given the injection.

While putting on his trousers, Sahdi showed the Post the mark on his body where the injection had been given.

Sahdi accused his former employer of paying the police and immigration officers to deport him to Indonesia, saying: "After the injection, I was brought to the psychiatric hospital to get a (medical) recommendation for my deportation."

Sahdi's mother Rah binti Railah said her relatives were shocked when the Malaysian police officers informed them that her son had been deported for "acting abnormally" in his workplace.

"I have five children working in Malaysia and all of them were healthy when they left for Malaysia," she said, adding that her son had often spoken about the injection he received following his arrival home.

Samiun, who is treating Sahdi, confirmed that his patient was suffering from psychiatric problems. He said, however, that Sahdi was recovering.

Dr. Helmi Azhar, the head of the Mataram Psychiatric Hospital, said Sahdi was in dire need of an accurate examination to determine whether he had been injected with a mood-altering drug or not.

"We would never do such a thing here. That is why we need to consult with the hospital in Johor Baru to get accurate information about Sahdi's mental state when he was examined there," he said, adding that the local administration should require all workers to undergo a psychiatric examination before leaving for overseas.

Atun, the head of the labor advocacy division at the Panca Karsa Foundation, which assists migrant workers experiencing problems, said the injecting of mood-altering drugs had long been practiced by the Malaysian immigration authorities when deporting migrant workers.

"We have filed complaints with the government and the ILO as we have encountered 40 similar cases over the last three years," she said, adding that all the cases concerned male workers who had been linked to brawls and other crimes in their workplaces.

She said the government should respond seriously to the practice as it was a clear breach of human rights.

---------- Foto Sahdi -----------