Suhakam visiting the Pulau Penang remand centre that uses the bucket system.
PETALING JAYA: The Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) has urged the government to abolish the “bucket system” still being practised in two prisons and a rehabilitation centre in Malaysia.
In this system, prisoners have to urinate and defecate in buckets or portable units in their cells, Suhakam said in its 2018 annual report.
The prisoners will then have to empty these buckets into the main septic tanks in the morning.
Currently, this system is used in the Taiping and Penang prisons, as well as a rehabilitation centre in Muar.
Suhakam said that the Seremban prison, Pengkapan Chepa prison and a rehabilitation centre in Batu Gajah were replacing the bucket system with in-cell sanitation.
“The three older prisons (Taiping, Penang and Muar) were unsuitable for renovation, because of the existing condition and the structure of the building themselves,” it said in its report.
Suhakam added that the old prison buildings were generally dilapidated and many of them were unsuitable for the confinement of large number of detainees on a long-term basis.
It also recommended that a custodial medical unit (CMU) is built in police lock ups, so that the incidents of deaths there are reduced.
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