Conditions in Detention

Conditions in detention are comparable in their brutality to those in fascist regimes such as South Africa.

Visits are restricted to close relatives - friends and fiances are not allowed, conversation between detainees and visitors is conducted via telephones across a glass barrier and monitored by the authorities. If conditions of life in detention or ill-treatment are mentioned the telephone is immediately cut off and visits suspended. Interviews with lawyers are rarely granted, and when granted are closely supervised.

Neither is there any legal protection from torture of any kind. In 1966, the Singapore Constitutional Commission, headed by the Chief Justice, recommended a constitutional safeguard against torture and inhuman treatment.

True to form this was rejected outright by the PAP regime. Indeed Lee Kuan Yew himself admitted to tortures practised by his regime at the meeting of the Commonwealth Press Union in 1974.