Indian special task force must include NGOs, community voices

Pakatan Harapan's special task force that will be set up to look into issues affecting the Indian community must include a balance of stakeholders and not just Harapan representatives to ensure a genuine, inclusive and well-rounded study. It must include representation from the community and grassroots organisations, whose input is invaluable.

As the welfare of the Indian community has been identified as a national issue under the Harapan government, the task force must not limit itself to purely Indian representatives. These are national issues, Malaysian issues, representative of a failed BN system.

The majority of the issues that the task force has identified are violations of human rights and the task force must therefore also include representatives from human rights organisations who have been consistently vocal on issues affecting the Indian community.

It is also of utmost importance that the task force be gender balanced, without which any investigation would be shallow and incomplete. All too often the concerns of Indian women are sidelined or unrepresented and the task force must recognise their equal role in society.

For years, human rights groups such as Lawyers For Liberty, Suaram, the Bar Council and Suhakam have been vocal on issues affecting the Indian community, including on the shocking numbers of deaths in police custody, police abuse of power including the torture, inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees and detention without trial under the Prevention of Crime Act.

Testimony from survivors, their family members and from the human rights defenders and legal experts who have advocated for them are invaluable for the task force and to ignore their experiences would be arrogant. Their recommendations for legal reform, ratification of the UN Convention Against Torture and for processes such as the IPCMC (Independent Police Complaints and Misconduct Commission) to be set up, are also in line with the Harapan manifesto.

Community consultation is also important concerning statelessness within the Indian community, where the previous BN administration took a lackadaisical and haphazard approach to registration. Lawyers For Liberty, for example, has been representing stateless individuals and lodging complaints with Suhakam for many years and their expertise and experience must be considered by the Harapan task force.

I call on the Harapan government to urgently call a meeting with community members, (police brutality) survivors, and representatives from human rights organisations to plan and discuss the next steps in addressing the concerns of the Indian community.

I reiterate that in this the new Malaysia, where we are on a quest to rebuild our nation, we must look beyond race in the composition of the task force. The task force must also represent the views and input of human rights organisations and legal experts who have been consistently working and advocating for the Indian community.

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Sivamalar Genapathy is the vice chief of Keadilan women’s wing and Pakatan Harapan women’s wing's legal bureau head. - Mkini

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