KL rights body to investigate racial violence

KL rights body to investigate racial violence

KUALA LUMPUR (Agencies): Malaysia's human rights commission would investigate claims that police stood by while ethnic Malays attacked ethnic Indians during recent ethnic violence which was the country's worst in three decades, a senior member said on Friday.

Commissioner Anuar Zainal Abidin said a full and open public inquiry should be urgently held into the claims, which stem from fighting outside Kuala Lumpur earlier this month which killed at least six people and injured more than 50.

The accusations are contained in a report compiled by an ethnic Indian-based political party which interviewed dozens of mostly Indian witnesses to the clashes, and handed to Anuar on Friday.

The 108-page report, which included graphic photographs of Indians who were hacked by long knives called parangs and who suffered other injuries, said some police who flooded into the area during the fighting "deliberately" left ethnic Indian settlements unguarded and stood by while armed Malays attacked Indians at random.

The report said the fighting was not a racial clash, but was "an orchestrated ... organized crime by a small Malay squad of about 200 people attacking any and every Indian."

P. Utayakumar, secretary-general of the Malaysian People's Reform Party which compiled the report, urged an urgent human rights probe be held.

"There has gross violations of human rights," he said. "Sufficient police protection was not provided for the Indians."

He said 10 official complaints had been filed against police including allegations that officers were "watching passively" as Indians were attacked, or were within the vicinity of attacks but did not respond.

National police spokesman Benjamin Hasbie denied on Friday that officers had failed to protect ethnic Indians and said the force would cooperate with the human rights commission.

"We have nothing to hide," Hasbie told The Associated Press. "We protect everybody, that is our cardinal responsibility. We have been very transparent and very sincere in carrying out our duties."

At least six people, five of them ethnic Indians, were killed in fighting which started on March 8 and continued intermittently for four days in five townships on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur.

The fighting is believed to have been triggered after an ethnic Indian man knocked over furniture at a Malay wedding in the neighborhood, and escalated into the worst racial violence since riots in 1969 involving ethnic Chinese and Malays.

Authorities have blamed the clashes on criminal gangs and poverty in the villages, which are home to about 100,000 mostly poor laborers and squatters.

Anuar said he would push for a full-blown inquiry into the allegations by three panelists. If a full panel inquiry was not possible, he would conduct the inquiry himself with full powers from the commission.

"I agree that an immediate inquiry should be held," Anuar told reporters.

Meanwhile, women's groups in Malaysia are demanding a law against sexual harassment at work after only one percent of employers adopted a voluntary code, they said on Friday.

The government released the code in 1999 but only 4,500 workplaces, mainly multi-national companies, have adopted it, and reports of harassment are increasing.

"Because the code is voluntary, what we're seeing is the response from the employers is dismal," Loh Cheng Kooi, executive director of the Women's Crisis Center in northern Penang state, said during a meeting in Kuala Lumpur.

Deputy minister of human resources Abdul Latiff Ahmad refused to commit the government to creating a law.

"We will discuss it thoroughly," he said at a press conference after receiving draft legislation from the leaders of eight women's groups. "We are still in the education process."

Last week, Abdul Latiff said the government received 40 complaints of harassment last year compared to 18 in 1999.