Racial profiling

How would you feel if you were targeted by the enforcement community just because you were of a certain race?

What more if you were fleeing your home country because of internal strife?

Well, that’s how an average Burmese would feel. Read this.

Burmese in Malaysia face arrest, detention, and deportation. Malaysia has not signed the 1951 Refugee Convention or its 1967 Protocol and the Government of Malaysia does not distinguish between refugees, asylum seekers, and illegal migrants. In the past, legal protection has been offered to specific groups of asylum seekers who the Government of Malaysia chooses to recognize.

Not signing an UN treaty is only the tip of the iceberg. (You may wonder about the ’specific groups of asylum seekers who(m) the Government of Malaysia chooses to recognize’ are?). Because of the failure to distinguish between the different types of foreigners, what we have here in Malaysia (or maybe specifically KL), is a morass of confusion and profiling that is hurting the national conscience.

Sometimes for lack of better judgment, we see a Bangladeshi or Cambodian and we go ‘reason for snatch thefts’. I can say that over the years, we are becoming more xenophobic as a nation. And our leaders have not led in showing an example. Think for example, what Dtk Noh Omar said to the press, when he was still with the Internal Security Ministry.

This article was really an eye opener to me. I am particularly angry at the protracted racial profiling practised by RELA.

The biggest perpetrator of abuses against the Burmese in Malaysia is the People’s Volunteer Corps or RELA. RELA is comprised of around half a million civilian volunteers who are authorized by the Government of Malaysia to arrest undocumented migrants in order to help maintain public order. Unlike the police, who are working to improve their treatment of refugees and asylum seekers through cooperation with international and local organizations, RELA uses extreme tactics, including paying volunteers for each undocumented migrant they arrest.

A volunteer rukun tetangga is one thing. But a volunteer corp to do law enforcement is courting disaster. I used to be ambivalent about RELA, but after reading this article, I cannot (and shouldn’t) remain neutral about them anymore. Calls for its disbandment have been made and I echo it.

I’m sure many of you still remember the two cases of Indian nationals who were wrongly arrested. Well here’s the response from Datuk Radzi Shiekh Ahmad,

So you Indian readers out there, be careful! Don’t go out to the sundry shop with slippers without your blue I/C. You just might get picked up by RELA corps.

But I shouldn’t get carried away with a rant against RELA. They have done nothing to me.

But reading this, we should wonder at ourselves: How humane are we when this things happen to Burmese living in our country.

Despite such difficulties, many of the refugees are fearful of leaving their hiding places in the jungle because they lack any type of documents. They are dependent on their employers for food and are normally paid half of what local workers make. It is difficult for these refugees to access basic services like health care. For the most serious medical cases, the refugees must travel four hours south to Kuala Lumpur since mobile clinics and mobile registration do not reach far outside of the capital and many local hospitals do not recognize UNHCR documents.

Should any human being made to live like this?