Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) refers to the shocking news that a prisoner, Zaidi Abd Hamid, died in prison on 7 October due to a whipping punishment carried out on him.
Zaidi, whose death sentence was commuted to imprisonment of 33 years, would have had the chance of being released after serving his sentence.
It is sickening that his second chance at life was lost due to the effects of the whipping that he had to endure. He escaped the gallows, only to die unlawfully and brutally by the rattan cane.
To date, the home minister and the government have remained silent over Zaidi’s death. This is callous and irresponsible.
This indifference is unjust and cruel to the family of Zaidi. They are entitled to answers.
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Why was Zaidi allowed to undergo the whipping in the first place, considering that he is reported to have been suffering from high blood pressure and diabetes?
In an attempt to exonerate themselves, the Prisons Department claims that Zaidi was declared fit after a comprehensive medical assessment before the whipping was carried out.
But then why is Zaidi dead from the whipping? The brute facts belie the Prison Department’s excuses.
Considering his illness, the whipping should not have been carried out at all. There is an abject failure of duty of the medical officer in the Prisons Department who is responsible under Section 290 of the Criminal Procedure Code for ascertaining whether an offender is in a fit state of health to undergo the caning.
Zaidi’s death highlights a larger problem regarding the punishment of whipping in our criminal justice system. It is a barbaric and archaic punishment that is designed to inflict extreme pain and suffering upon an offender. It was introduced into Malaya in the 19th Century by the British colonial power.
Why have successive Malaysian governments since independence clung to this horrendous colonial relic?
Despite the precautions that are supposedly in place, death can still occur due to the traumatic injuries that the whipping inflicts and the medical complications that come with it, as in Zaidi’s case.
What sense or need is there then for whipping, which brings with it the risk of death, to be maintained in our criminal justice system? Surely, the punishment of imprisonment is adequate to ensure public safety from serious crime.
The government has a duty under Article 5 of the Federal Constitution to ensure that the life and liberty of every person is protected, and this right extends equally to prisoners.
Those who are not sentenced to death must be protected from any and all possibility of death whilst they are in the custody of the state.
It is obvious that as long as the punishment of whipping is in place, the government is gambling with the lives of these prisoners and the hopes of their families awaiting the prisoners’ release.
LFL urges the government to carry out a thorough probe into all the circumstances of Zaidi’s death. The system that failed Zaidi must be fixed.
LFL further calls for the government to immediately impose a moratorium on the carrying out of existing whipping sentences against prisoners throughout Malaysia, pending the probe into the circumstances that led to Zaidi’s death.
Meanwhile, it strongly urges the government, which says it is reformist, to abolish the punishment of whipping, which is barbaric, inhuman and potentially fatal.
It is high time our country turns away from brutal penal punishments and invests instead on the rehabilitation of prisoners. – LFL
Zaid Malek is director of Lawyers for Liberty.
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