Amateur Videos Are Putting Official Abuse in New Light

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, November 15, 2006; A01

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- "Do your squat! Do your squat!" the policewoman barked. "Arms up!"

The 22-year-old babysitter, Hemy Hamisa Abu Hassan Saari, had already been forced to strip naked. Now she was being ordered to squat up and down, over and over, keeping her elbows away from her body and holding her earlobes.

"I cried. I was scared. I was ashamed," Hemy said in an interview, recalling what had happened on the night of June 29, 2005. She had just been arrested for drug possession. She had no drugs, her attorney said, but police found some on a friend of her fiance. Police arrested the whole group anyway.

"Do I really have to do this?" Hemy, who had never been arrested before, pleaded with the female officer standing in front of her in a tiny police station locker room.