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Mass Burmese hunger strike in Malaysian camp

Up to one thousand detained migrants, mainly Burmese, in a Malaysian camp are on hunger strike and demanding access to the UN refugee agency amidst severe overcrowding.

The predominantly Burmese inmates in the Lenggeng camp have for a long time been living in “terrible conditions”, according to Mie Ye Tun from the Arakan Refugee Relief Committee (ARRC).
“It is very difficult to continue their life; they are ready to [hunger] strike until whenever,” Mie Ye Tun told DVB after contacting detainees too afraid to speak to the press.
The camp is said to have a capacity of 1,250; but as of August 2009 it had a population of 1,430. Exact figures of the current population are difficult to attain.
Aegile Fernandez, head of Tenaganita, a migrant NGO based in Kuala Lumpur, said: “They have transferred detainees from other camps so it’s really full to the brim. I think this is one of the reasons they are on this hunger strike, because there is lack of water and it is so uncomfortable being crushed into one place like that.”
She added that “we are asking Suharkam [the Malaysian human rights commission] to go in immediately and get feedback”.
Fernandez also suggested that the protest had come amidst a crackdown by Malaysian authorities on undocumented foreigners in the country.
“They have started the operations for nabbing the undocumented workers after the Chinese New Year [last week] so the camps now will get even more full up; they will just dump them in with or without water.”
Malaysia’s home minister last week was quoted in the press as saying that the government intended to create an environment where foreigners without legal status would feel “afraid and threatened”.
If there was any doubt therefore about the chain of command in Malaysian policing, Mie Ye Tun relayed that: “One of the captains [elected detainees] from the camp was beaten badly because he made a report to the outside”. Another captain was “told to eat the food or [the police] will become violent. They threatened them”.
The crackdown comes after Malaysia was reclassified as a Tier 3 country for human trafficking by the US state department; the worst possible classification on its scale.
The situation has been called into question by Tenaganita as the Malaysian government looks set to register around 10,000 new migrant workers, despite the large numbers of undocumented migrants already in the country.
“Our call is that they stop the intake of new migrant workers; we have asked the government to register the ones who are already here,” she said.
“The ones who are here have not all come here illegally, [but] have become undocumented as a result of the employers or agents”.
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