“Don’t say anything bad. Tell them everything is good." First family visit in detention

ISD Detention Centre is near Changi Airport

Article #12

Apart from threats on my family, Chang told me that my friends had also been arrested. “You hear more chains walking past your cell right? That’s all your friends.”

I heard the chains regularly. A few days later, I asked Ong about my friends. I was worried for them.

He was not in the room when Chang told me they had arrested my friends. Ong said none of my friends were arrested.

Apart from the chains, the cells were either totally silent or ground-vibratingly noisy. There were no human noises. I did not know if there were anyone in the next cells. There were no voices and no indication of anyone else. The only sounds were from the fans.

And from the planes.

I thought that the detention Centre was in Whitley Road. As far as I knew, there were no airports in Whitley. But from my first day, I heard planes constantly. It was so loud I sometimes thought planes were going to crash onto the building. It sounded as though we were right on the runway.

I asked the ISD officers about it. Ong asked me “what time did you usually hear this noise?” I looked at my wrist and looked back at him.

How was I supposed to know? I did not have a watch. “Whatever time you send me back to cell.”

But they did not explain further. A week later, I asked Dr Tan. I was worried if I was hallucinating.

“We are in Changi. Of course, you will hear planes. We are right beside the airport” he told me.

After I found out we were in Changi and not Whitley, I kept the knowledge to myself. I knew the ISD did not want me to know. I did not want Dr Tan to get in trouble for sharing the information with me.

When I was served with the Detention Order however, I noticed that the address listed on the order was C1 Complex, Changi. I asked Ong why he kept the information from me even when they knew I thought I was hallucinating.

“We are not allowed to tell you.”

But that was normal in detention. I told them they were trying to grow mushrooms.

“Why grow mushrooms?” Tim asked.

“You keep them in the dark and feed them shit.”

All information was kept away so that a detainee would be totally disoriented and dependent on the ISD.

The sense of helplessness was constant and overwhelming. I did not know the time, did not know what would happen that day or any day, or any part of the day. No clue about what was going on. No news, no information. I did not know when or if I would ever be released.

Tim would tell me “it is not forever” as though it was meant to make me feel better. He admitted that no one knew when I would be released. The helplessness was compounded with hopelessness. What hope was there when the ISD robbed you of all your rights? What hope was there when you do not even know when it would end? And there was absolutely nothing you could do.

At least in normal prisons, you know the date of release. In ISD detention, you do not know when or if you ever will.

I thought about the cruelty of power. How the PAP would destroy others just to ensure their continued dominance. Just to make sure the PAP would remain unchallenged.

During the interrogation period, Tim assured me he was trying to get me released as soon as possible. In between his screams, he would say that I did not belong in detention. He claimed that I should be placed on Restriction Order (RO).

I had already missed out on the Eid celebrations with my family. We thought that 2016 would be our best Eid ever, with celebrations with family and relatives in Singapore and Malaysia. Instead, I spent it alone in the cell, chanting the Eid takbir on my own on the stone bench.

My family went through Eid without knowing what happened to me. All they were told was that I was arrested.

A few days later, Chang told me that they were making arrangements for me to meet my family. I would be given 30 minutes. I was excited. I thought we could sit down and hold hands. I thought we could have a conversation. I wanted to tell Shireen to get our children out of Singapore.

Before the meeting, Chang and Charlton met with me. I was told what to say. “Don’t say anything bad. Tell them everything is good. Tell them don’t tell people you are detained. Tell them to keep quiet.”

Chang was explicit “You know when your wife meet people for Hari Raya then they talk. Then people tell her get lawyer. Tell her stop. It’s not good for you.”

I finally met my wife and mother a couple of weeks after my arrest. The ISD officers kept reminding me what to say. Whether I would get to meet my family again depended on how I acted on that first visit.

As usual, I was handcuffed, ankle cuffed and blindfolded. Before being sent to the family visit room, I was brought to meet with Tim and Ong who again, reminded me about what to say.

The family visit room was narrow. With my chained legs, I had to take several steps to the counter before being told to slide to the left. I was told to sit on a circular metal stool.

My left hand was cuffed to a metal bracket on the wall. A glass panel separated us. I was disappointed. I had hoped to hold them.

One of the ISD officers sat behind me, listening and taking notes of our conversation. Another sat on my family’s side.

When my wife and mother walked through the door, I could see their anxiety even as they tried to mask it. I asked them about their Eid celebration. My wife and children had spent Eid in Malaysia with her parents, as we planned. My in laws did not know I was arrested until later.

My mother asked if I was beaten. I was not. Although I did not tell her that, a lot of times, it looked as though Tim was going to hit me.

Once, during the interrogations, I saw Tim working himself up into a rage. He was standing, bent down and his face was right in front of mine. His hands were clenched into fists and almost shaking. He was furious because I had refused to accept one of his accusations.

I prepared myself for the punch. As Tim screamed into my face, I put my right hand up between his face and mine, preparing to block his punch.

When he saw my hand over my face, Tim shouted: “Why do you put your hands up? Why do you put your hands up?”

“Because I think you are going to hit me” I replied.

He looked shocked as though he did not realise what was going on. He stood up, pulled back and shook his head, sobering himself. “Fuck you I am not going to hit you” he said as he walked to his padded chair.

I told my family that I was not beaten. I repeated what Chang and the other officers told me to say: I was well, don’t talk to others, don’t ask for a lawyer, keep everything quiet.

The family visit ended quickly. I did not know when I would meet my family again. Everything depended on what the ISD would allow.

Continued in the next article.

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