Fury at Malaysia's caning of immigrants

MALAYSIA has caned dozens of refugees as illegal immigrants, a refugee group said, sparking criticisms that the government was torturing people it should protect.

Malaysia arrested up to 300 of Myanmar's Rohingya refugees at the weekend for alleged immigration offences, raising fears they too could face caning, a top leader of the refugees said.

"We no longer find Malaysia a safe haven," said Zafar Ahmad, of the Myanmar Ethnic Rohingyas Human Rights Organisation. "At least 80 Rohingyas have been caned previously."

Malaysia is home to 2.7 million foreign workers, including 700,000 there illegally. Caning of criminals is under scrutiny after a video of a prison caning was put on the internet.

A naked man is shown strapped to a wooden frame, his rear exposed to a uniformed official who lifts a metre-long rattan stick above his head before bringing it down on the prisoner's buttocks, tearing the flesh with each strike.

"The government has no plans to abolish the cane as part of punishment," the deputy internal security minister Fu Ah Kiow said last week. He denied use of the cane against illegal immigrants was widespread.