TAIPEI: A Taiwanese woman claimed that she had been mistreated during a 35-hour detention by Malaysian customs over a “damaged passport” earlier this month.
The woman, identified only by her Facebook name Chiao Mei, said at a press conference that she had been treated inhumanely during her recent visit to Malaysia.
The woman said she arrived at Kuala Lumpur International Airport 2 on March 9 but was promptly denied entry by local customs who claimed her passport was damaged.
Customs authorities later confiscated her R.O.C. passport and her cell phone before bringing her to a room for further interrogation. A man who claimed to be a local customs official allegedly asked her for money in exchange for her release.
After she refused to pay the bribe, the woman said she had been thrown into a detention center. She was appalled by the poor conditions in the detention center which apparently lacked adequate lighting or privacy. More local officials also came to her asking for bribes, she added.
She was later released and deported back to Taiwan on March 11.
The woman has called on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) to look into the matter with the Malaysian government so that no Taiwanese suffers the same alleged inhumane treatment that she did.
Asked to comment, MOFA spokeswoman Eleanor Wang said Taiwan’s representative office in Malaysia had immediately contacted local customs authorities after receiving reports of the woman’s allegations.
Wang said that, according to the ministry’s understanding, what happened was not a deliberate targeting of an R.O.C. citizen as there were hundreds of foreign visitors denied entry to Malaysia every day.
She called on nationals to check if their passports were damaged before visiting foreign countries to avoid running into trouble during overseas travel.
A source familiar with the matter told press that a customs official had the right to reject the entry of any foreign visitor if he or she has doubts over his or her travel document’s authenticity.
The Taiwanese government has no right to interfere in another country’s customs authority.
The only thing the government can do in this situation is to seek assurances that the Taiwanese woman in question has not been mistreated as she alleged prior to her deportation, the source said.
