Parliament should commemorate the 2001  Human Rights Day on Monday by calling for investigations into the Pekan Nenas immigration detention centre riot and the reported Qala-e-Jhangi massacre of Taliban prisoners

---

Media Statement
by Lim Kit Siang

---

Both Houses of Parliament - Dewan Rakyat and Dewan Negara -  should on Monday commemorate the first  Human Rights Day in the new millennium by breaking from the mould of past  parliamentary indifference and apathy to human rights and demonstrate by word and deed a new commitment to the cause of human rights which transcend national boundaries.

One way for the Dewan Rakyat, which will still be meeting on Monday, to demonstrate that it is in the national and international forefront in concerns and commitment on human rights is to pass unanimous motion on two pressing human rights issues, namely:
 

• Call for a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Pekan Nenas immigration detention camp riot and the condition of all detention centres in the country; and
• Call for an independent international inquiry into reports into the reported massacre of hundreds of Taliban prisoners who staged an uprising in the Qala-e-Jhangi fortress after they surrendered at Kunduz in northern Afghanistan.

The Malaysian Parliament should not continue to be remiss in it human rights obligations by being insensitive and unresponsive to grave human rights issues in the country and the international arena - and it is time that Members of Parliament, whether Barisan Nasional, Barisan Alternative or the DAP, demonstrate that they could unite  on human rights issues and questions.

On the home front, MPs must demand whether the appalling conditions in the detention centres had been a major contributory factor in driving the detainees to riot and set ablaze four of the five wooden buildings at the Pekan Nenas detention centre where they were housed while awaiting deportation back to their homeland.

(6/12/2001)