Amateur Videos Are Putting Official Abuse in New Light

"I was surprised and angry and embarrassed all over again," she said. "Our culture doesn't allow this."

With a pink scarf wrapped around her head, hiding her black hair and framing her round face, she looked even younger than 23. She said that at one point she felt so shamed she wanted to die.

She panicked at the thought of what would happen to her when her friends, neighbors and relatives figured out she was the naked woman. She called a lawyer for advice.

"She had nowhere else to go," said Baljit Singh Sidhu, a well-known criminal lawyer in Kuala Lumpur representing her. Though Hemy is "not street-smart at all," he said, she had a "spark, an anger, something in her" that made her willing to fight the system.

After Kok, the opposition legislator, had played the video in the Parliament building for government officials, the scandal had gotten so big that it was playing on mainstream TV stations.

International Impact

It created a stir in China, too. Because Hemy has light skin, many who saw the video mistakenly believed she was Chinese; about 25 percent of Malaysia's population is ethnic Chinese. On Chinese Web sites, some called for a boycott of Malaysia.

Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, alarmed at the possibility of losing Chinese tourism, sent government officials to Beijing to apologize. He also took another extraordinary step: He ordered an official high-level inquiry into the scandal.

"It was quite a change" for the government to react, said Kok. Officials had been unresponsive to a Chinese woman's recent complaints that she, too, had been forced to do naked squats. Kok said this woman had been erroneously arrested on the charge of having a false passport and kept five days in jail. The difference was the existence of the video evidence in Hemy's case, she said.

After calling 16 witnesses, the special commission announced in January that Hemy's treatment was "tantamount to inhuman and degrading treatment," and a violation of human rights.

An Islamic scholar had testified about the particular importance to Muslims of keeping the body covered to protect dignity. A medical doctor said squatting is not an effective method of detecting something hidden internally. According to other testimony, body searches do not require complete nudity and should be used only in cases of "reasonable suspicion" -- for example, if the person was acting suspiciously, had a criminal history and was being charged with a serious crime.

The inquiry also found "a lack of transparency and accountability of the police" and recommended an immediate change in police procedure.

Baljit, the attorney, said that without the video "there would be no case," no commission, no new law to change this police practice.

Hemy, who recently became a mother, said she views the video two ways. "Of course it brought me shame," she said, "but it is good because it brought this to light."

The male officer who recorded Hemy, identified during the government inquiry as Mohamad Dzulfatah, "is in the process of dismissal," according to a police spokesman. He said that the female officer was "following instructions" and remains on duty but that police station "procedures have changed."

The police are now trying to turn the technology to their own advantage: They are asking citizens to send digital images of traffic violators, double-parkers and people who otherwise add to this city's monumental traffic jams.

Hemy's drug possession case has yet to go to trial, but her lawyer said no drugs were ever found on her. She is suing the police for negligence and seeking damages of about $2.7 million.

Yap Swee Seng, executive director of Suaram, a human rights group, said Hemy has a strong case -- one that shows how the common cellphone has shifted power to ordinary citizens.

"Five years ago this would have been totally impossible," he said.