Tuesday, December 16, 2014

A Victim Remembers

Former US vice president Dick Cheney blasted the 500-page senate summary of interrogation techniques used against inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba as "terrible" and "full of crap." The "torture report" said the CIA's interrogation of Al-Qaeda suspects, including beatings, "rectal rehydration" and sleep deprivation, was far more brutal than acknowledged and did not produce useful intelligence. None of those interrogated was female. The hired goons at the Whitley Road Detention Center had no such scruples.

Tang Fong Har was one of the six arrested on 20 June 1987 by the government of Singapore during Operation Spectrum under the nefarious Internal Security Act. She was physically abused, kept incommunicado and forced to admit guilt of subversion of state. The following is an extract from her accounting of the atrocity.
"....The male interrogator throughout made snide remarks about lawyers and the legal profession and belittled my work in the Law Society. In the midst of the accusations being hurled at me, I retorted “Now, look here…” or words to that effect. I never completed my sentence: one of the interrogators slapped me across my left cheek, not with a flick of his wrist but with the full force of his body. I fell to the ground and my glasses landed on my chest. I was completely shocked by the assault and wished that I could faint as I felt that I could not take any more. I had never felt more humiliated in my life.

The female Chinese then made a show of helping me to stand and said something like “It’s ok. Take it easy. Why don’t you co-operate?” I can’t remember whether the interrogator who slapped me remained in the room after that. However, I remember his face and subsequently I came to know his name: S. K. Tan."
(A detainee remembers – Part 2)

The full report of the horrors was published in the August 1989 issue of Index on Censorship, an international organisation that promotes and defends the right to freedom of expression.

6 comments:

  1. The report of prisoner tortures and abuse was published by the US Senate, the Government. Whatever abuse carried out during detentions on prisoners in Singapore is exposed by International Organisations or Activists, not by the Singapore Government. Do you expect the PAP Regime, after 50 years of rule, to expose their shit? That is the difference between the United States and Singapore.

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  2. Why when most other more developed countries will eventually admit their wrongs, ours always deny it but doesn't ever provide any evidence to support their continued denial ?

    Is our PAP Govt a pariah one ?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No

      We just gave them the mandate, again & again & again & again and again.

      Can we remove the mandate?
      Yes.
      But cowards always chicken out.

      Delete
    2. No, they are at least one up on every other government otherwise their pay will be unjustifiable.

      Delete
  3. One is used against terrorists or alleged terrorists, almost entirely foreign combatants.

    The other is used against own people.

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  4. Tattler, your piece came too soon, before the son-in-law of the 35% President's piece in today's ST. Going by what he wrote, those who tortured Dr. Lim Hock Siew, et.al. ought to go to prison.

    ReplyDelete