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Brutality in our own backyard
Aliran Monthly 2004:5
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Parti Keadilan Rakyat (People�s Justice Party) is pleased to note that Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad has appropriately criticized the United States and Britain over the �inhumane and brutal treatment of Iraqi prisoners.� Abdullah is reported in the media today as having said yesterday that, �There is no excuse for what happened. We cannot accept it and there is no justification at all ...� Abdullah is also reported to have urged, �The US and Britain must act immediately to stop such treatment. They must identify those responsible and take action against them.� Well said, Mr. Prime Minister! But are you going to do anything about the brutal and inhuman treatment of Malaysian prisoners by the Malaysian police under your own ministry? Your criticism of the US and Britain will sound hollow if you do not follow it up with appropriate actions on happenings in our own backyard. This year two people have died while in police custody. One person, Francis G Udayappan, disappeared after being arrested and questioned by the police. The police claimed he had escaped from custody, but his family members are convinced that he has died and that the police are trying to cover up the truth about the circumstances of his death. Last year 18 people were reported to have died while in prison or in police custody. There is an estimate that the frequency of prisoners who have died while in custody over the last few years is roughly one in every two weeks. Neither the police nor the Home Security Ministry has denied these figures. Of course we are not enumerating here cases of police violence during peaceful demonstrations and during interrogations of all types of detainees. I wish to echo strongly what Abdullah has correctly urged the US and Britain to do by similarly urging strongly that the government he leads �must act immediately to stop such treatment (and) identify those responsible and take action against them.� To repeat his advice to the US and Britain: Abdullah �must not wash off (his) guilt� and he �must show (his) commitment in upholding human rights of �. prisoners�. Please walk your talk, Datuk Seri! Syed Husin Ali 4 May 2004 Physical and mental torture Most torture of ISA detainees occurs during the first phase of their detention, in police custody for two months before they are served with the Detention Order, signed by the Minister, and then sent to the detention camp. During this phase, detainees are kept in known lockups or unknown holding centres. Here they are subjected to interrogations and inhuman physical as well as mental torture of different degrees. In some cases the two month period is extended. The second phase is when detainees are held at the detention centre. Kamunting is the only centre left now, but in the past there were others in Muar and Batu Gajah. Torture seldom takes place in these centres. But, there have been records and reports of detainees being attacked or tortured by police (often from FRU units) when they were on hunger strike or when sent as punishment from Kamunting to Batu Gajah, which was considered to be a more severe place. At different times, many detainees have been sent back from the detention camp to the lockups or holding centres, purportedly for the purpose of evaluation, re-interrogation or �rehabilitation�. In several cases, they were subjected to worse forms of torture than they experienced during the first phase of their detention. Just to mention an example, Yong Ah Chit, a University of Malaya graduate and a leader of the Chinese Language Society while in the university, who was detained with me, was transferred to a lockup in Kuala Lumpur after being detained about three years in Kamunting. In the lockup he was subjected to severe mental torture. When he was taken back to Kamunting, he was almost a total wreck and in a state of severe depression. A few months later he was released, and not long after he committed suicide by hanging. Syed Husin Ali 31 May 2004 The story of Hamat and Aladin During the few days I was there, I spent a lot of time talking to my new friends on their experiences, especially during interrogation. Most of these experiences were not much different from one another. They always complained about insufficient food land being tortured during interrogation. The stories of Hamat and Aladin were the saddest.
One day, he fainted. His interrogators sent him back to his lockup. The corporal in charge there refused to accept Hamat under such condition and asked him to be taken to the hospital. The corporal did not want to be held responsible if anything happened. Subsequently, Hamat was taken to the hospital. After the incident he was not beaten again. The torture on his son Aladin was worse. Although he was still young, only 19 years of age, Aladin already had a wife and a child. He was working as a labourer in Singapore. When he heard that his father was arrested, he rushed home. A day after his return, he was arrested. He was asked to admit that he had a pistol, but since he never had one, he refused to do so. He was asked to describe all his activities, which were supposed to be in support of the communists. In order to extract admission from him, he was tortured in different ways for two week. Among them were:
It was raining heavily then. According to Aladin, an officer pulled him to a dirty stream in front of his house. The officer pushed his face several times in that stream. For the first time Aladin cried. He said, he cried not because he felt hurt, but because he felt sad that this was done within the full view of his wife and child. Syed Husin Ali, �Two Faces� 
Bright lights and endless shouting
Those who use the ISA make no effort to establish truth, uphold justice or observe an individual�s inherent right to dignity and respect.The whole purpose of the 60-day period is �turning over� the detainees to justify their own arrests without trial by the authorities. While I was in detention, I was asked to lie over the television that the Prime Minister had acted correctly in arresting me. I told the police I had no acting skills. If I had, I could have been a rich and famous movie star instead of being a persecuted, penniless democratic activist. To repay my recalcitrance, the Special Branch inflicted upon me some preliminary punishment. I was denied sleep for 48 hours. I was placed in a high-back chair with a bright light shining in my face while my interrogators, who worked 24-hour shifts, endlessly shouted into my ears. Lim Guan Eng, Aliran Monthly Vol.21(3) Chamber of horrors The initial 60 days of detention are the most harrowing both for the detainee and his or her family. Both sides are in the dark as to where they are detained; both are kept on tenterhooks regarding family visits. The place of detention is referred to as Malaysia�s own Chamber of Horrors. Here the detainees are at the mercy of the Special Branch tactics. Evidence gathered so far indicates that detainees were generally subjected to prolonged interrogation in deliberately over-cooled rooms, deprived of sleep for extended periods of time and threatened with indefinite detention without trial. An Amnesty International report released on Dec 20, 1988 pointed out that interrogators humiliated and terrorised several detainees during interrogation with mock sexual assaults. Uncooperative detainees were beaten up, punched and slapped. Detainees were mostly held incommunicado during the 60-day period. In many cases, their families had no notion where they were being held. Others were given limited access to families, relatives, and defence counsel. One detainee has described the so-called investigation period as �a licenced period for the Special Branch to terrorise and torture.� The systematic use of physical and mental torture in the course of interrogations violates not only international legal standards, but the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the most important documents of the 20th century. Article 5 of the Declaration lays down very clearly that �No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.� Yet, witness what had taken place in the Chamber of Horrors. Aliran Monthly Vol.21 (11/12) Tireless interrogators That night I was interrogated till the next morning by a new team of interrogators whom I�d met the evening before. They took turns, two or three of them every two hours. I was made to sit on a round stool with no back. Compared to the first team, this team was extremely rough. They spewed obsenities, screamed at me, cursed, scolded, insulted and humiliated me all through the night. (p. 49, translated) Kassim Ahmad Universiti Kedua: Kisah Tahanan Di Bawah ISA Petaling Jaya, Media Intellek, 1983 She was abused, insulted, threatened and bullied like an animal. �I shall always remember how on the ninth day of my detention, I was beaten with a stick. It was the most humiliating experience in my life. I was forced to stand there while an inspector of the Special Branch beat me with a stick - to remind me that they were not going to treat women more leniently. I was truly in a state of shock. Irene Xavier, Aliran Monthly Vol.21 (11/12) 
Insulted, shamed and abused
From the start of the interrogation process, for about four continuous weeks, the questions put to me were a form of mental and emotional torture. I was insulted, shamed and abused with swearing and derogatory words meant to reduce my self-esteem. The worst period of abuse was during the first three weeks of interrogation. Among the vicious abuse hurled at me included:-
Hishamuddin Rais Aliran Monthly Vol.21(7) They stripped me of all self-respect "They screamed and screamed and screamed, in my ears, at my face, at me, again and again, over and over asking me to say 'yes' until I gave in and broke down saying yes, yes." The way Munawar raved and raged against a legal counsel who had turned up to represent him, exposed the cruel and chilling terror of torture and trauma he had been subjected to. In his affidavit, he summed up his horrendous experiece: "They stripped me of all self-respect; they degraded me and broke down my will and resistence; they threatened me and my family; they frightened me; they brainwashed me to the entent that I ended up in court on 19 Sept a shivering shell of a man willing to do anything to stop the destruction of my being." Dr Munawar Ahmad Anees, Aliran Monthly Vol.21 (11/12) Now e-mail us and tell us what you think. | |||||||||||||||
He was asked to smoke a piece of newspaper that was rolled and burnt at one end, until the fire burnt his lips, and when he tried to throw away the burning paper, he was beaten and kicked again.
