Two Singapore women made to strip, do squats by JB immigration
The Malaysian Insider
SINGAPORE, June 14 — Two Singaporean women who drove to Johor Baru for supper were questioned by Malaysian immigration officials, handcuffed, thrown behind bars and made to do squats while naked, the Singapore Straits Times reported today.
The two women said they had driven into Johor Baru without getting their passports stamped, through an unmanned immigration lane.
Following their punishment, they were allowed to return to Singapore after 48 hours with a warning.
“We thought it was a small issue, we didn’t think something like that would happen,” the Straits Times quoted one of the women, a manager in an insurance company who wanted to be known only as Ms Chang.
A Malaysian immigration spokesman in Johor Baru confirmed that two Singaporean women had been detained for an immigration offence.
Chang, in her late 30s, had been driven to Johor Baru by her friend, a property agent in her late 20s, who wanted to be known only as Lim, at about 1.30am last Thursday, the Straits Times reported.
Lim was driving her new Nissan Latio. It was the first time she had driven to Malaysia, although she had been driven there before by friends, according to the Singapore newspaper.
“We just wanted to go for supper, polish my car and explore a bit,” she said. “I just bought my car a month ago, so we thought we’d make it an adventure.”
At the Malaysian immigration side of the Causeway, they drove into a lane that was not manned.
‘There wasn’t anyone at the station and the green light was on,” Lim told the Straits Times.
“I pressed the intercom and couldn’t hear anything because of the static, so I just continued driving when the barrier opened.”
Chang told the daily they drove on because they thought that Malaysia’s newly introduced biometric system — which has been in the news — would be ahead.
The women realised that they had proceeded without getting their passports stamped, and immediately did a U-turn.
By 2am, they were back at the checkpoint and explaining their mistake to the officers there. But they said the officers did not buy their story, although they pointed out that their Singapore passports would show that they had just entered Malaysia, the newspaper reported.
Read more at: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com/malaysia/article/two-singapore-women-made-to-strip-do-squats-by-jb-immigration/
