Chapter 1 – Report of the Policy, Law and Complaints Group in Malaysia,46 the Commission recommends that such rights be extended to all refugees who are already present in Malaysia. (e) Detention under Preventive Laws In 2015, the Commission continued to observe the use of preventive laws, namely the Prevention of Crime Act 1959 (POCA), the Dangerous Drugs Act (Special Preventive Measures) 1985 (DDASPM), the Security Offences (Special Measures) Act 2012 (SOSMA) and the newly enacted Prevention of Terrorism Act 2015 (POTA). While the Commission supports the Government’s efforts to tackle serious crime and curb terrorism, the Commission stresses that all laws should be in line with human rights principles. The Commission had expressed its concerns that these laws infringed fundamental rights by allowing preventive detention, thereby violating a person’s right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty and to be given a free and fair trial before a competent court. In 2015, the Commission received eight complaints involving detention under POCA, five under the DDASPM, and one under SOSMA. In most of these cases, the Commission had written to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MOHA) forwarding the appeals of the complainants and highlighting the Commission’s stance on the laws as well as emphasising the rights of the detainees to be tried in an open court of law as guaranteed under the Constitution and the UDHR. The Ministry responded to several of the Commission’s letters by informing the Commission that the appeals of the complainants had been forwarded to the Board of Crime Prevention and the Advisory Board for consideration. On 11 November, the Commission received a memorandum from Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) on the misuse of SOSMA to detain and torture suspects of terrorism. The family of one of the suspects detained under SOSMA, Mr. Nor Azmi bin Jalani, claimed that he had been tortured mentally and physically during his 28-day detention under SOSMA at the Police Remand Centre (PRC) in April. As part of the inquiry into the complaint, the Commission recorded Mr. Azmi’s statement at Sungai Buloh Prison on 25 November. During the recording, the Commission discovered that there were three other detainees who allegedly went through similar torture while being detained together under SOSMA. They are Mr. Hadrami bin Hashim, Mr. Mohd Yusri bin Mohamed Yusof and Mr. Ali Saifuddin. The Commission recorded the statements of the three at Sungai Buloh Prison on 22 December. Among the allegations made by the four detainees are that: 46 “Malaysia accepting 3,000 Syrian refugees on humanitarian grounds, says Zahid”, New Straits Times, viewed at, http://www.nst.com.my/news/2015/10/malaysia-accepting-3000-syrian-refugees-humanitarian-grounds-sayszahid?utm_source=nst&utm_medium=nst&utm_campaign=nstrelated on 2 October; “Malaysia to offer shelter, jobs, education to Syrian refugees”, Astro Awani, viewed at http://english.astroawani.com/malaysia-news/malaysiaoffer-shelter-jobs-education-syrian-refugees-64005 on 2 October. 93 BOOK-ANR2016-01-latest.indb 93 08/04/2016 3:32 PM