Blog . Jiboneus

There have been all the fuss here in Malaysia about the case of a a video clip depicting a female police officer watching a female detainee do ear squats in the nude. It’s been all over the Malaysia blogosphere. It seems that almost all Malaysian base blogger has mention it. It is even in wikipedia! I think the news was made famous by Jeff Ooi the Malysian blogger who strive in blogging sensational issues. He immediately compared the scandal to Abu Gharib scandal in Iraq, which is ridiculous.

The video shows a woman naked and beening told to do ear squats for 2 or 3 time then was asked to take back her clothing. At first every body was piss saying that it’s “a gross infringement of human rights” and somewhere in the news a Minister in the PM’s Office, Tan Sri Bernard Dompok, saying “stripping and asking foreign visitors to do ear squats should not happen at all in a civilised country”.

Image from sun2surf.

So how do one conduct a strip search? Looking at Google for the answer i found a policy of Arizona Department Of Correction on the procedure on how to conduct a strip search. There are more result of how actually a strip search is conducted. Most of it involving the detainee to squat and cough.

Consistent with DO 708:

• a. Minor visitors shall not be strip searched.
• b. Two staff members of the same gender as the person being strip searched shall conduct the strip search in a professional manner and in a private area.
• c. At no time during the strip search shall any part of the person’s body be touched by staff members.

At no time during the strip search shall any of the person’s body be touched by stafff members. I didn’t see the the female police officer ant any time touch the detainee’s body, unless the video i watch is not the full version.

The policy document has about 16 steps of how to conduct the strip search. It involve the detainee to first of cause, strip and so on. Let me highlight number 15.

15. Instruct the subject to bend forward and spread buttocks.

• a. Inspect for any hidden objects. For female inmates, also inspect the vaginal area.
• b. Be aware of any constriction of the rectal muscles in the anus.
• c. Instruct the subject to squat down and cough deeply, unless the subject appears to be, or claims to be pregnant.
• d. If suspicious that contraband may be present, instruct subject to squat down and cough deeply again.
• e. If still suspicious that contraband may be present, medical personnel shall be contacted to provide a more intrusive search.

Read the section d. “Instruct the subject to squat down and cough deeply, unless the subject appears to be, or claims to be pregnant.”

On Jeff Ooi post saying that

Women’s Aid Organisation executive director Ivy Josiah that squatting exercises would not necessarily bring out anything hidden in the vagina or rectum was right.

May be it is not to flush out anything, just to see if there is any contraband present. If there is then a medical personal shall inspect the detainee.

So could it be that the event that was shown was actually a routine police procedure? The way i see it is yes. You see Malaysia’s government servant most of them are some what lazy and unprofessional when comes to routine jobs. It might just be that the female officer was slacking and instead of following the rule book she decides to skip most of it.

When she was ask to conduct a strip search to the detainee, what she did was to told the detainee to hold your ear, squat down, get up, ok you’re done, go back to your cell.

Seriously if it was me, for some reason I was to be strip search by the police, I would rather prefer doing ear squats then having some stranger touching my body. But at the same time i wouldn’t want the situation been recorded at all. So the real perpetrator here is the dim wit who think that it was cool to grab his or her mobile phone and start to record the situation and MMS it to everybody. I hope the police found the person detain the person and conduct a strip search while having a big HD camera recording the whole situation.

So there you have it. For those who is preaching police brutality and so on, can just shut up now. Try using Google first.

I normally blog about tech related content, but I just couldn’t help feeling that I have to say something here.

On another note, In some places strip search is done by actually having the detainee take a shower.

I would like to also say that, I don’t know about the legality of strip search in Malaysia as I am not a lawyer nor am I a police officer. I do believe that most of the other blogger are not lawyer nor a police officer but that doesn’t stop then voicing out their opinions.

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