Zahari's 17 Years

Filmmaker Martyn See said that Said is the only one of those detained in the 1960s under the Internal Security Act who is willing to speak publicly about his experience. "I wanted to show another side of Singapore's history," See said of his reason for making the film.
Source: http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=2022589417781119779&hl=en-GB

Editor’s Note:
Said Zahari was a journalist in the 1950s and 60s, crucial years in which the nature of leadership, public debate, and political participation were institutionalized in the emerging nation-states of Malaysia and Singapore.

Born and raised in Singapore, Pak Said wrote for the anti-colonial Malay-language newspaper Utusan Melayu and became its dynamic editor at its main office in Kuala Lumpur in 1959. In 1961, he led the workers of Utusan in a historic 3-month strike to try to preserve its editorial independence from the ruling political party UMNO.

As a result, he was banned from Malaya. Moving from journalism into politics, he joined the effort of the multi-dimensional and multi-ethnic left to forge an alternative to the conservative turn of Lee Kuan Yew’s People’s Action Party.

On the very night in February 1963 that he joined Partai Rakyat (People’s Party) and was elected to its leadership, he was swept up in the mass arrests of Operation Cold Store. By this means the governments of Singapore and Malaya cleared the way for their (ill-fated) merger as Malaysia. A contemporary of Mahathir bin Mohamad and Lew Kuan Yew, Said Zahari was held without charge for over 17 years
Source: http://kyotoreview.cseas.kyoto-u.ac.jp/issue/issue2/article_226_p.html



In a Singapore government media release highlighting the ban, it was stated that the documentary in question, "gives a distorted and misleading portrayal of Said Zahari's arrest and detention under the Internal Security Act in 1963
Quote:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Said_Zahari#cite_note-1
Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiHD1ATY32TxW71l3zRNnap_WNV4Fs8uwVbCu5V4mxSWfXZD6tlAwovbn4y7PmsLITEFveCA12Gs8UB8QTc83GtM8sKSt7c1WXJxPIz1Z6zjFMVhvoqVbl7B3D0C63rX2D1uK1FeAly1rr/s1600-h/media+release.jpg


Chia Thye Poh

Chia Thye Poh was the longest-serving political prisoner in the history of Singapore and perhaps the longest-serving prisoner of conscience of the 20th century, or if not, one of its longest-serving political prisoners.

Detained under the Internal Security Act of Singapore for allegedly conducting pro-communist activities against the Government, he was imprisoned for 23 years without charge or trial and subsequently placed under conditions of house arrest for another nine years - in which he was first confined to the island of Sentosa and then subject to restrictions on his place of abode, employment, travel, and exercise of political rights.

Chia's low security detention in Sentosa left the public bewildered as to the purpose of his original and continued detention. Was Chia being punished for his political opposition or was he a genuine internal security threat. If the former, then surely this was a travesty of justice, and if the latter, then why such low security?
Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chia_Thye_Poh