Pressure mounted on the Malaysian government Tuesday to investigate claims of the torture of prisoners which human rights groups have likened to the abuse of Iraqi detainees by US troops.
A group of 31 detainees held under Malaysia's security laws for alleged terrorist links has complained of abuses such as being stripped naked, forced to masturbate, massage their interrogators, drink spittle and having their beards burnt.
A statement by the detainees listing 59 forms of alleged abuse was submitted to the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) in January and widely reported by the international media, but the issue has been revived after the scandal over the treatment of Iraqi detainees.
Photographs published around the world showed inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad who had been stripped naked and forced into humiliating, sexually suggestive poses, with reports saying some had been ordered to masturbate in front of their captors.
The Malaysian government roundly condemned the abuse, and has now been accused of hypocrisy and failing to act on the reported torture of its own detainees, who can be held indefinitely without trial if they are suspected of posing threats to national security.
"The only difference with the torture as practised by the American military personnel in Abu Ghraib prison was that they were foolish enough to take pictures of their exploits," the prominent rights group Suaram (Voice of the Malaysian People) said in a statement Tuesday.
Suaram, claiming that "torture has been going on for decades" in Malaysia, called for an "independent and transparent inquiry" into the latest allegations.
The National Human Rights Society (HAKAM) issued a separate statement saying that "past knowledge of torture" of detainees held under the feared Internal Security Act (ISA) makes the latest claims "credible enough to warrant an immediate investigation by an independent commission."
The government has dismissed the allegations of torture and reacted angrily to the comparison with the treatment of Iraqis by US military personnel.
"People here know our track record and the prisoners here are definitely not tortured," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar told reporters.
"Why are you linking the situation in Iraq to Malaysia? That is very naughty of you."
Malaysia has detained more than 80 alleged Islamic militants under the ISA, a number of them allegedly members of the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) group blamed for a series of deadly attacks in the region, including the Bali blasts that claimed 202 lives in October 2002.
The 18-page report by the 31 detainees, who are being held at the Kamunting Detention Camp in northern Perak state, urged Suhakam to probe their allegations and press the government to repeal the ISA.