“Your three oldest children, who do you love the most?”. ISD threatened my children.
Article #5
The next morning, I was woken up by food delivered for the pre-dawn Ramadhan breakfast.
I kept waking up the whole night. Sleeping on the floor in a tiny cell was not easy. I felt as if my whole world was that cell. There was nothing else outside.
Near the bottom of the metal door was a small door that could only be opened from the outside. I crawled to the opening and took the food. After I finished eating, the sentry knocked on the door and told me to stop eating. That would be a few minutes before the dawn prayer time.
After I prayed, I went back to sleep.
Soon after waking up again, there was another knock on the door. The doctor was there to check on me. I was told to spread my hands against the wall. Gurkha officers came into the cell and patted me down. Once I was cleared, the doctor entered the cell to ask me how I was.
Every weekday during the first four weeks (interrogation period) Dr John Tan, would come into the cell in the morning to check on me. In the evenings after interrogation, the nurse, Anderson, would check on me again. The relief doctor, Larry, made the reason for the checks clear. While Dr John would speak generally with me, Dr Larry was business like.
After I had been patted down by Gurkha officers, Dr Larry would enter the cell and tell me to lift my shirt.
“Any injuries? Bruises? No?” he would ask and walk out. His job was to make sure that we were not physically hurt. At least, not with visible injuries.
Soon after Dr Tan left, the Gurkha officers came to the cell again.
They showed me the cuffs and chains through the small door. “Interrogation” they said.
I was made to spread my hands and legs again. They patted me down. I was not allowed to have anything on me. Not even tissue paper.
“Turn around” the officer said. As I turned, I was handed the wool beanie.
I pulled the beanie over my eyes. They pulled it lower to cover my nose all the way to my upper lip. I was not allowed to even have a peek of the floor I walked on.
“Hands out.” I felt the cuffs on my wrists. One officer then squatted and cuffed my ankles while the other kept guard, holding my arm. I pulled up the chain linking my hand and ankle cuffs.
The sense of helplessness overcame me. I was stuck in a tiny cell, cut out from life, with no recourse, no options available. Cuffed and blindfolded.
The Gurkha officers turned me towards the door and led me out. I was brought down in the lift and into another airconditioned room. A few steps in, I was told to walk sideways to the left and sit down. One of the officers removed the cuff from my right hand and recuffed it on the left metal arm of the chair.
My left hand and ankles remained cuffed and chained.
They pulled the beanie off my face and I had to blink out the lights. The wool from the beanie irritated my eyes and I had to refocus. In front of me were the three officers, Tim, Ong and Roslan.
Between us was a metal desk that reminded me of the autopsy table. Behind them, high on the wall was an airconditioner unit pointed straight to my face. The officers sat below the unit, safe from its stream.
Tim screamed and shouted again. He told me to admit to being an ISIS supporter. I refused. Everytime I tried to respond, he would shout at me.
“No I did not...”
“Shut up. Shut up.” He screamed. “You supported ISIS!”
“No I supported the....”
“Shut up. Fuck you. Shut up. You supported ISIS.”
It went on and on. Tim controlled the interrogation. Ong and Roslan would watch me and type on their mobile phones. Occasionally, Tim would read his phone messages.
From the morning to evening, they demanded that I confess to be an ISIS supporter. I was helpless. In my thin prison uniform, facing the cold airconditioner and cuffed to the chair.
It became really cold. Tim had said earlier that he would give me the airconditioner control unit, but it was attached to the wall.
“Sir, it’s really cold” I said to Tim. Roslan got up and adjusted the temperature on the control unit. It became bearable for a short while.
Then it became cold again. After a while, I would tell them I was cold and shivering. Roslan would adjust it again. A few minutes later, it became unbearably cold again.
Everytime he went to adjust the control unit, he would press the buttons repeatedly. It did not make sense. If he moved it up by 4 or 5 degrees everytime, it would have been almost boiling by the end of the day.
I found out what went on a few months later. I was in the family visit room and asked the Gurkha officer if they could increase the temperature because it was too cold.
“Cannot. All central control.”
He pressed the adjust button and I saw the temperature display did not change. The same happened in the interrogation rooms when only the Gurkha officers were with me, without the ISD officers. It seems that there were times the units were individually controlled but they could be overridden by the central command.
Tim’s screaming and the cold went on for hours. In between his screams, he would speak normally to me.
“We only have a set of questions to ask you. Once we finish the questions, you can go. We will release you. The earlier we finish, the earlier we can let you go.”
They claimed that I was not supposed to be detained.
“This is because you lied on the first day. If you told the truth we won’t have arrested you” he said, referring to my statement that I supported the revolution, not ISIS.
Tim stressed repeatedly that I was not supposed to be arrested. They wanted to release me. I was told that if I agreed with them, then we could move on to the next question. But if I did not, then they would keep at it.
And that would delay my release. I was not meant to be detained. Agree to their demands and I could go back to my family.
It did not mean I would be free. Tim made clear repeatedly that I would be on Restriction Order. I would not be allowed to leave Singapore. I would be given a curfew and wear an electronic ankle tag.
The instruction for me to just accept their demand did not sit well with me. I knew that whatever happened, they would detain me for years. I had not fully reconciled myself to that reality. I was working on it.
To ease the stress, I would joke during the “non-shouting” periods. I would talk about soccer to lighten the atmosphere. Roslan and Ong would sometimes join in. Tim would join with his “jokes”.
When I talked about home, he would laugh and say “The cell is now your home.”
And then, they would get back into their zone, look at the computer and shout and threaten.
In the evening, they called the Gurkha officers to take me back to the cell for me to break my fast. As the Gurkha officers recuffed my right hand and just as they were about to blindfold me, I said to Tim “I don’t know why you guys are doing this.”
It seems particularly cruel. They knew I did not support ISIS. All they wanted was for me to make a false confession. And it seemed clear the false confession would then be used to publicly justify my detention.
I had no doubt they would have detained me whether I made the false confessions or if I did not. The only difference would have been, with the false confessions, the PAP government could publicise it. They would not be accused of using the ISA politically.
After dinner, I was brought back to interrogation room, IR 20. That would have been a little after eight. There was no clock anywhere. In fact, throughout my detention, I was not supposed to know the time, day or date.
That night, as Tim screamed at me, the door opened and a Chinese man in his late 50s, in a collared office shirt and slacks entered the room. I learned later that his name was Chang. Tim referred to Chang as his boss.
He glared at me.
“I heard shouting” he said, as if accusing me instead of Tim.
The other officers made way for him. Chang sat across from me.
“This is ISD. Game over” he announced. “Say it.”
“Game over” I repeated.
“Louder” he ordered. I complied.
“Louder!”
I realised he wanted to establish his authority and break me. I complied. Over and over again.
He looked at me with smug satisfaction after I had practically shouted my response.
“We don’t care what you think. You tell us what we think!” he demanded.
He pointed to the wall. “People outside, who do you think they will believe? You or us?”
“You” I replied. Which was obvious. They controlled the media and had all the power. I was cuffed and chained to the chair.
“Good.”
Then he changed tack. “Your three oldest children, who do you love the most?”
At the mention of my children, I panicked. They were in Singapore. My heart raced.
“All of them.” I was anxious.
“Who the most?” he shouted.
“All of them.” I was terrified.
“We are going to arrest your three oldest children” he roared.
“They will be here. They will wear the same clothes you wear until the red is faded! We will bring them here in handcuffs.”
He pointed at the door. “You will see them here in handcuffs! We don’t care what you think. You tell us what we think!”
He kept shouting but I could not hear him anymore. In my mind, I saw Alauddin, Iskandar and Mukmin in prison clothes.
I saw them in handcuffs outside the door and I grew weak. I felt my body moving back and my mind zooming out.
“Sir, I feel sick” I said. I tried to stop myself from vomiting.
The next thing I knew, Gurkha officers were all around me and I was slumped in the chair.
I had fainted.
Continued in the next article.
“People outside, who do you think they will believe? You or us?”....joker la this guy,..too many western movies...