Tan Jing Quee - RIP

truth
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More options Jun 17, 8:40 pm
truth comment: the evils of lky and his papist gangsters will be remembered
forever.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Temasek-Review/190806675782
RIP Mr Tan, your tormentors will face justice one day either here on in the
afterlife.
It is not too late
I have known Tan Jing Quee since the 1970s. He was a successful, friendly
and humble lawyer then. I didn t know his past political history and
imprisonment under the ISA. He and his friends used to meet up with my
employer, G Raman and I was occasio...nally invited to have coffee with
them. I enjoyed their company because their conversations were always
interesting and stimulating. They never spoke of revolutions to overthrow
the PAP government. Singapore in the 70s was a very safe and peaceful
country. There was no violence, mobs or demonstrations. As a young lawyer,
I used to walk from North Canal Road to the Supreme Court and the
Subordinate Courts by the Singapore River without encountering any incident
along the way. Thus in 1977 when G Raman was arrested and after him, Jing
Quee, R Joethy and Ong Bock Chuan (all lawyers) and several well known
journalists and professionals were also arrested under the ISA, I was
stunned. They were accused of being Euro-Communists and pages of The
Straits Times were splashed with news of clandestine activities that they
were alleged to be involved in. I didn t believe the horrendous stories spun
by the PAP government against them. But I could not disprove anything except
that I could vouch that they were and are good people. As a legal
assistant to G Raman, I continued to attend matters in court. The entire
legal profession was silent. No lawyer ever asked me about the arrests.
Everyone went about their business as if nothing had happened. The Law
Society did not issue any statement concerning the arrests, even though four
of those imprisoned were lawyers. That was the climate then. Fear permeated
the entire society. I think a certain section of the population also
assumed that the government was right to carry out the arrests and it was
best to leave national security to them. Jing Quee was released several
months after but not before he was severely tortured and humiliated. Thirty
years later, he was able to put his painful experience in words. He wrote in
his poem, ISA Detainee : How could I ever forget those Neanderthals
Who roamed Whitley Holding Centre*, Under cover of darkness, Poured
buckets of ice water Over my stripped, shivering nakedness, Slugged
my struggling, painful agony Circling , sneering, snarling Over my
freezing nudity, More animals than men: What induced this
Vengeful venom, violent score To settle, not for a private grievance
But a public, democratic dissidence; From whence sprang this barbarity?
What made men turn into beasts In the dark, away from prying eyes,
Protected by a code of dishonour and lies To ensure they survive and
rise. I think it was in 1986 (at a time when the Law Society had become
more active in commenting on unjust legislation), that Jing Quee visited me
in my office in Geylang. I remember him asking me why I had set up my law
practice in Geylang instead of being in the city. He warned that I was
attracting unnecessary attention and that I may get into trouble. I replied
that everything that I did or had done was in the open and that my life was
an open book. I brushed away his concern, telling him that since I was
acting openly, no trouble would come to me. He retorted We didn t do
anything wrong too but we were arrested . Jing Quee s words puzzled me
for a while. But I soon forgot about his warning. I was confident that I
had done nothing wrong and that no trouble would ever come to me. I didn t
even put a thought to the ISA. I didn t even bother to check out the Act.
The Act was meant for terrorists and I was not one. So why should I bother
about the ISA? Sadly, I had forgotten about the arrests of Jing Quee and
his friends in 1977. The trauma suffered by them and their families had been
forgotten. My memory of those harrowing days had been erased. And so it
happened, the warning of Jing Quee became a reality a few months later. I
was arrested under the ISA together with many of my innocent friends in May
1987. Jing Quee has passed on to a better place. But he has recorded his
sufferings in his poem. The ISD and government officers who were responsible
for his sufferings have not come clean. They have not apologised to him
before his passing. It is not too late that they do so now, to his widow,
Rose, his children and his siblings. *A relatively new detention
center built in the 1970s located off Whitley Road, used to hold
political prisoners for short and medium term, mainly for interrogation .See
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By: Teo Soh Lung