KUALA LUMPUR : The Malaysian Police may soon have a codified Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for conducting body searches.
This comes as a report by a five-member commission on the nude squat incident last year was released to the public.
The panel said Malaysia should ban police searches that force suspects to do squats in the nude because it is a violation of human rights.
The video of a Malay woman doing nude squats sparked off the review into the way the Malaysian Police Force conducts body searches.
The commission, led by a former chief justice, said there were legal groundings for the police to conduct body searches.
But statutes like the Criminal Procedure Code and Lockup Rules do not clearly describe how the searches should be done.
In strongly-worded criticism, the commission also said Malaysia's police "remains resistant to change and insensitive towards human rights."
They described nude squats as "improper and forbidden" under Islamic or shariah principles.
The commission has recommended all police stations be equipped with body scanners to detect concealed items, and that medical officers conduct body cavity searches.
The Commission reviewed the best practices of other police forces that share similar statutory provisions, like the United Kingdom, Singapore and Australia.
The Malaysian government has said the proposed "Code of Practice on Body Search" (COPOBS) will be examined by a committee of lawmakers.
While this is just a proposal by the Commission, the Police Force has indicated that it's interested in adopting it as its Standard Operating Procedure.
The Commission has also gone further to proposed COPOBS to be passed as a subsidiary legislation under the Criminal Procedure Code and be made accessible to the public through the Police Force website. - CNA/de
See... The panel knew Malaysian police resist to any changes
