Round Up: International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

On Saturday 26 June 2021, we held an online day of action to commemorate International Day in Support of Victims of Torture. We asked people to reflect on torture in Malaysia, thinking about questions like:

  • What does torture look like in Malaysia? How does it exist in state institutions and practices?
  • What supports and enables a culture of violence and harm?sp
  • How can we build a society that affirms people’s dignity and preserves their humanity?
  • What are the impacts of torture? What does it do to a victim? What visible and invisible damages exist?
  • What does justice and state accountability after torture look like?

We also created online resources and content to help people navigate these questions. Here, you can review some of the content we shared on social media.

What is torture?

What does torture in Malaysia look like?

What supports and enables an environment of torture and violence?

Solidarity Posts

Resources

For more resources, take a look at:

  • 5 Faces, A Story of Custodial Death in Malaysia. Lawyers for Liberty documented the stories of 5 individuals who died in police custody. Kugan Ananthan, Sugumar Chelladury, Karuna Nithi, Dharmendran Narayanasamy and Balamurugan Suppiah, all suffered torture & sustained serious injuries.
  • A Blow to Humanity: Torture by Judicial Caning in Malaysia. This Amnesty International Report explores the horror of judicial caning in Malaysia.
  • Torture Therapy. In this short feature by The Feed SBS on counsellors helping torture survivors, a Sri Lankan refugee shares his experiences of torture by the military in Sri Lanka. After escaping to seek asylum in Malaysia, he was arrested and detained, where he was again abused. His interview begins at 11:13.
  • No Answers, No Apology: Police Abuses and Accountability in Malaysia. This 2014 Human Rights Watch Report examines cases of alleged police abuse in Malaysia since 2009, drawing on first-hand interviews and complaints by victims and their families. Human Rights Watch interviewed 75 people in Malaysia for the report, including victims of police abuses and their family members, lawyers, police officials including the current Inspector General of Police, public prosecutors, and staff members of government commissions and nongovernmental organizations.