The Malaysian Solution - refugees caged and caned in world of pain

ASYLUM seekers shipped overseas under the proposed "Malaysian Solution" will not be caned, says Immigration Minister Chris Bowen.

Labor has announced that up to 800 boat people picked up on their way to Australia will be sent to Malaysia for processing instead. 

Australia will accept 4000 people from Malaysia who have already been granted refugee status in return. 

The agreement has been widely criticised because Malaysia has not signed the United Nations Refugee Convention or Convention against Torture and has a history of caning asylum seekers. 

But Mr Bowen said he had received assurances that people sent there under the yet to be finalised deal won't be abused. 

"Malaysia has agreed to treat any asylum seekers transferred from Australia in line with their human rights," he said in a statement on Thursday.

They will not be caned."

 

Mr Bowen stressed asylum seekers transferred to Malaysia would be processed by the UN's refugee agency.

Living conditions at refugee camps in Malaysia have been condemned as crowded and unhygienic, with some inmates reported to have died from disease spread by rats.

According to Amnesty International, Malaysia flogs up to 6000 detainees a year, using a rattan cane that causes visible injuries and scarring.

The law allows guards to punish children.

"Across Malaysia, government officials regularly tear into the flesh of prisoners with rattan canes travelling up to 160km/h. The cane shreds the victim's naked skin, turns the fatty tissue into pulp and leaves permanent scars that extend all the way to muscle fibres," an Amnesty report into caning says.

Graphic video of caning in Malaysia - warning, some readers may find this disturbing

UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay, who is visiting Australia, claimed yesterday the Gillard government risked breaching international laws with the proposed swap of 800 boat arrivals for 4000 refugees from Malaysia.

While Immigration Minister Chris Bowen insists the deal complies with the UN Refugee Convention, that document does not cover torture, cruel punishment or conditions in detention centres that are dealt with under other international covenants and UN guidelines.

His office could not guarantee covenants or guidelines would be part of the agreement, which Mr Bowen said would be signed within weeks. Pressed on whether canings and the caging of pregnant women or children would br prevented, Mr Bowen's spokesman said negotiations were ongoing.

Ms Pillay was critical of the government's proposal. "If checks and balances are not made there's a huge risk of violations," Ms Pillay said.

Amnesty International's Dr Graham Thom toured three Malaysian detention centres last year, hearing how detainees had died of leptospirosis contracted via rat urine.

He photographed women and a baby caged in squalid conditions at Lenggeng Immigration Depot, near Kuala Lumpur, and hundreds of men in a tennis court-sized enclosure.

"We went to three different centres and each was equally appalling," he said.

Refugee lawyer David Manne said he had assisted asylum seekers who had been in Malaysian detention camps which were overcrowded and rife with malnutrition. "There are very poor sanitary conditions, serious systematic abuse, beatings, whippings, canings," Mr Manne said.

A spokesman for the UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, said "safeguards" were needed in the agreement to ensure any detention of asylum seekers was for a limited initial period.