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.