ALLEGATIONS that mainlanders were mistreated while in detention must be fully investigated, a legislator demanded yesterday, as more accusations of abuse surfaced. Legislative Councillor Cyd Ho Sau-lan, of The Frontier, said the Government must actively investigate accusations that one of the 179 people detained for overstaying was forced to do squatting exercises in the nude. Other detainees claimed they were not allowed to use the telephone until at least 24 hours after they were detained and had to undergo strip searches, which were not routine procedure. 'If the reports are true, it's very serious. If someone is standing out and admitting it, we must investigate it,' Ms Ho said. Several people have told the media stories of alleged abuse. They gave their full names and appeared on television on Friday, a day after their release. Ms Ho went to the area outside the Central Government Offices yesterday where the protesters were staging a 24-hour protest, to interview the alleged victims. 'A man told me he had to jump around like a rabbit in the nude. This type of treatment is completely unnecessary,' Ms Ho said. 'The saddest thing is some people might think it's acceptable for a group of people they don't want to stay in Hong Kong to be treated this way, but if we let this happen, the next victim could be us.' Yesterday, several more people spoke out about treatment in the immigration detention centres. Hui Mau-king, a 26-year-old who was detained in Victoria Immigration Centre in February and was one of 17 mainlanders involved in a test case for residency rights, said two guards told him to do a short dance in the nude and later complimented him. 'They said, 'You've got a well-built body. You can be a movie star',' Mr Hui said. 'I just did it and never complained because I thought everyone had to go through that in jail.' He and Chan Yan-yan, a protest leader, said a few men detained last week were groped around the genitals. A man surnamed Chow said a guard told him to scoop up a bowl of rice he had dropped on the floor and then told him to eat it. He refused and in subsequent meals the guard would not give him utensils, telling him 'gorillas don't need to eat with utensils,' he said. Two women on Friday had reported that a female guard demanded evidence they were menstruating when they wanted more sanitary napkins after running out of the ones the guard gave them the first time they asked. 'She said we were wasting taxpayers' money,' one of the women said. The Immigration Department yesterday issued a statement saying they were looking into the matter but that based on preliminary investigation they had found no indication of mistreatment. A department spokesman said the holiday period had hampered interviews with all the guards involved in monitoring the mainland people. Ms Chan said the detained mainlanders initially did not discuss the incidents until reporters asked this week. 'They were embarrassed and unaware. These are grown men. In all their life, they had never been in jail. They thought jail was supposed to be like this,' Ms Chan said. Li Xuan, 25, said they may have been mistreated because they were trying to stay in Hong Kong, but that it could have happened to other people. She said she still had faith in Hong Kong. 'If I didn't believe in Hong Kong, I wouldn't be here right now,' she said.