VIDEO: Former ISD detainee Dr Lim Hock Siew speaks of his detention
November 16th, 2009 | 
Author: Video courtesy of Martyn See
The following speech was made by Dr Lim Hock Siew on 14 November 2009 during the book launch of the “Fajar generation” at the Alumni Medical Centre.
A founding member of Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party, Dr Lim Hock Siew was arrested in 1963 under Operation Coldstore and released after 19 years in 1982.
He is the second longest political detainee in Singapore after Chia Thye Poh, who was detained for 32 years, 4 years longer than Nelson Mandela.
Excerpts from Dr Lim’s speech:
“After 9 years of incarceration, they want me to release a statement and secondly to renounce politics. I told them that these two demands are self-contradictory because if there is parliamentary democracy, then I don’t have to give up politics, so they said “You must say something to show repentance or otherwise Lee Kuan Yew will lose face”….In the first place, if a person has to save his face by depriving somebody else of his fundamental rights, then that’s not a face which is worth saving.”
“That was a place not fit to keep animals let alone human beings. The place was so dark, so stinky and so ill-ventilated that you cannot stand inside for more than 24 hours but I was locked in there for 24 hours a day and the whole place was infested with bugs. I had a lot of bugs for company, no reading material and the light was so dim that I could hardly see the crease of my hand.”
“It is to our credit that we did not break down despite our difficult ordeal. We stood our ground and held on to our integrity. Today they are asking us to be magnanimous. What does magnanimity mean? Only those who have suffered have the moral right, the moral standing to be magnanimous, not the culprit. The culprit can seek forgiveness. If they admit their mistakes and apologize for it. Not the victims of this torture to seek forgiveness. We are the ones who have to be magnanimous and we are prepared to be magnanimous provided that the culprits admit their mistakes and seek our forgiveness.”
“I stood firm and had to suffer for two decades. That is the price we had to pay for our integrity. In Singapore we have a situation where the government leaders said they have integrity that has to be sustained by the highest pay in the world but yet they demand from political opponents and detainees an integrity that has to be sustained by the longest imprisonment in the world. These two types of integrity – to compare them is to compare heaven and earth. Why should anybody has to sacrifice so much just to sustain his integrity and his beliefs? And the government have to reward themselves with so much high pay. This is the immorality of the political situation in Singapore today. “
Posted in Editorial
Coz it’s true to character of...
Admin. Why are we having problems accessing the site. Even with anon proxy?
~Kuku
I salute you, Dr Lim.
indeed magnanimity is only for victims to dispense like the chinese WWII victims who forgive the japanese, like mandela who forgive the whites, like gandhi who forgive the british.
an integrity substained by high pay is no integrity to speak of in the first place. warren buffett still draw a low annual salary of 100k despite making his shareholders rich. other ceos draw millions but make their shareholders poor.
to admin,
the site is very slow. have you recovered from the ddos attack?
i still can’t access the site as usual and has to change my proxy setting.
Great spirit!
All the glamour that goes with LKY is actually build on excessive coercion of people like this person: illusory.
All the believers and followers of LKY: you are just begining your process of realising how you have been decieved.
To Admin,
Congrats, looks like your posts on the “The Fajar Generation” and the video by Dr Lim has stirred up the hornet’s nest. Only been able to access your site through proxies and its quite slow (assuming you guys are getting DDOS attacked)
I would love to get hold of a copy of the book. Is there anyway to purchase it and get my hands on one? I’m sure a few others are also keen on getting it but do not know how. Lol i would assume its not available in local bookstores, obviously.
Hope you fend off this attack soon and re-stabilize.
Neither law nor order – not much different from communism nor Hitler’s nazism.
A complete sham and an indictment of our shameful chapter of history.
On idictment of history, whose “shameful chapter of history” are we talking about? Certainly not that of people such as Dr Lim and his likeminded peers but that of those such as LKY who have usurped the fruits of the post-WW2 anti-colonial struggle. Shame on these usurpers of history to their exclusive credit and benefits, I say.
Shame on LKY and his perverted view of justice. This man would break the back of everything just to have his way. He makes use of people and dispenses off them once they outlived their usefulness.
I shall recant a theme borrowed from someone from another website who think it appropriate to lay this epitaph on the tombstone of this self-proclaimed “great leader” of Singapore when the time comes (it is taken from 17th Century James Shirley’s Death The Leveller):
The glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against Fate;
Death lays its icy hands on kings;
Sceptre and Crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow,
Then boast no more your mighty deeds!
Upon Death’s purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your head must come
To the cold tomb:
ONLY THE ACTIONS OF THE JUST
SMELL SWEET AND BLOSSOM IN THEIR DUST.
Dr. Lim, if it may offer recompense in any way, the last two lines above may well be your victory lines and your nemesis LKY will always be remembered for posterity not by anything that “smell sweet” but by the stink and stench of his politics of immorality.
It is sickening to know that people are held for decades without charge, and have the best years of their lives spoiled, trampled upon and insulted.
Such inhumanity cannot possibly be justified.
This old fart LKY will stop at nothing to have full control of his Kingdom.
In the old days he uses ISA to detain his political opponent,now he uses the court to sue until you become a bankrupt.
The amount of crime and evil deeds he do to his political opponent past and present will not cover for whatever other good he have done for spore.
Where is the book being sold? Would like to read it