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Nov 22, 2008

New York-based Human Rights Watch has urged the government to drop the court case against migrant workers activist Irene Fernandez, which has dragged on for more than 12 years.

As her case is set to resume on Nov 24 in Kuala Lumpur High Court, Asia director of Human Rights Watch Brad Adams said holding her case would just tarnish the country's image if it continues to "prosecute people, especially respected voices, for peaceful expression."

Calling it politically motivated charges, Adams stressed that the court should drop her case on the grounds that what she documented was the truth of the "government's sadistic and humiliating treatment of migrants".

In July 1995, Fernandez, the director of Tenaganita, an NGO that exposes the abuse of migrant workers in Malaysia, sent a public memorandum to the Malaysian government, titled 'Abuse, Torture and Dehumanized Conditions of Migrant Workers in Detention Centers.'

"These include random beatings in the middle of the night, HIV/Aids detainees sleeping on a roofless porch, rain or shine, filth, food and water shortages, and totally inadequate medical care," he said, revealing that Human Rights Watch has also documented such treatment.

Fernandez, 62, was sentenced to 12-month imprisonment in 2003 after being found guilty by the Kuala Lumpur Magistrate's Court of maliciously publishing false news. She was allowed bail pending appeal.

Fernandez's first mention date of her appeal on June 11 was postponed to Aug 5 after papers with statements of important prosecution witnesses were found to have gone missing.

On Aug 5, the case once again came to a standstill when Fernandez was told a computer virus had wiped out a portion of a specific volume of notes required for the trial.

Her case has become the longest-running criminal trial in Malaysian history.

"The Malaysian government should say 'enough is enough,' and end the dubious case against Irene Fernandez once and for all," said Adams.