In its Malaysia Human Rights Report 2025, Suaram said this was its finding from the 6,892 people arrested under Sosma between 2018 and 2023.
It added that this reflected a lack of investigative rigour when detaining people under the law, which allows for suspects to be detained for 28 days straight without judicial oversight.
It also said 70% of these arrests were linked to human trafficking but the rate of accused persons getting conditional discharges was nearly five times higher than those charged with terrorism-related offences.
“It suggests that Sosma is used to ‘warehouse’ suspected gang members or organised crime figures when the evidence is weak.
“The prosecution charges them under Sosma to keep them detained without bail, only to eventually settle for a discharge not amounting to an acquittal (DNAA) when they cannot prove the case.
“In addition, in organised crime cases, a defendant is nine times more likely to receive a DNAA than a full acquittal,” it said in the report.
The rights group added that there was a 44% decline in Sosma cases reported in the media, with coverage of organised crime arrests dropping dramatically by nearly 73% from 126 to 34.
It repeated its call for draconian Sosma provisions to be repealed, particularly those allowing detention without bail and delayed trials.
Suaram also said the alleged abuse of more than 100 inmates at Taiping prison last year, a case which led to a Suhakam inquiry, had marred Malaysia’s performance in its annual human rights report.
“The efforts of families to seek justice were obstructed by the state’s institutional defensiveness during the public inquiry and incommensurate legal charges for the resulting death of Gan Chin Eng,” it said.
The NGO also reported a 54.5% increase in police custodial deaths over the past few years, rising from 22 in 2023 to 34 last year, citing government statistics.
Suaram said there was a slight decrease in prison custodial deaths and figures for the immigration department were uncertain due to a lack of statistics from the department.
“Notably, 2025 marked the first time in five years that police custody incidents reported in the media (three cases) were fewer than those in the prison system (five). This is despite government records showing that police deaths (34) are actually four times more prevalent than prison deaths (eight).”
It however did not have any custodial death statistics from the government for 2024, saying the data was not released by the authorities.
“The disparity between official statistics and media-monitored cases -characterised by significant under-reporting (by the media) with government-recorded figures consistently exceeding public accounts -remains a longstanding issue.
“This is most acute for immigration custody, which historically records the highest death tolls yet rarely sees more than one media-reported case annually.”
Suaram also criticised Malaysia’s approach to managing its migrant and refugee communities, saying it continued to be marked by mass immigration raids.
It added that more than 21,000 of these detained migrants were holed up in overcrowded immigration depots.
“Despite international commitments to eradicate forced labour, systemic exploitation persisted through predatory ‘job scam’ recruitment and the exclusion of domestic workers from essential labour protections, leaving thousands in situations of debt bondage and precarious legality.”