| Vincent Cheng: ISA victims must speak out |
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| Monday, 27 September 2010 |
Singapore Democrats In the 1980s it was not uncommon to find workers being exploited and abused by their employers, some getting paid as little as $4.40 for eight hours of work. The PAP Government did nothing about this. One man tried to address this situation by working to empower these workers. He was Vincent Cheng.For the first time since he was detained under the Internal Security Actin 1987, Mr Cheng has told his side of the story. He did this during the SDP's pre-election rally held at the Speakers' Corner last Saturday.
He told an enthralled audience the reasons for his arrest and how he was treated while under detention. In the early 1970s Mr Cheng was working with low-income workers in Taman Jurong, educating them about their rights and training them how to take their cases to the authorities. He took up a job and worked alongside the workers to experience the hardship for himself and to see if what they were sayng were true. They were true, he told his audience. In the 1980s he worked at the Geylang Catholic Centre and later with the Justice and Peace Comission, dealing with domestic helpers and foreign workers. In 1986, Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos was overthrown in a people power revolution. The Catholic church there, led by Cardinal Jaime Sin, was influential in the ouster. Mr Lee Kuan Yew was afraid that what happened in the Philippines would take place in Singapore. He had Mr Cheng and 21 others arrested on 21 May 1987. While under detention, Mr Cheng was deprived of sleep for days and interrogated in a cold room where he was assaulted. ISD officers repeatedly hit him in the face and punched him in his back and chest. He succumbed to the beating and was forced to confess on television that he was a Marxist conspirator. During his televised confession and unbeknownst to his captors at that time, Mr Cheng told the crowd that he had, as a sign of protest, combed his hair to look like Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The audience roared with laughter.
To the support of everyone listening, Mr Cheng ended: "The SDP encourages and fully supports this move." Share this article:
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Even if Vincent Cheng does not speak today, the truth will come out some day.
Likewise whatever truths that dont come out today, will come out some day.
On the same breath, no falsehood constantly put out by autocracies lasted forever.
One's actions cannot be considered just and fair unless the prevailing condition is as such. Tyrants and hypocrites surface regularly in human history as two main characters. Their scripts are always the same. They will argue how they are doing for the good of everyone or what they are doing is good or what they are doing is by law. Their role play are always the same - tyranny, injustic, unfairness, brutality, oppression. However their end either during their lifetime or after death is always the same - defeat and humiliation.
As for the faithful servants of these tyrants and hypocrites, you have no grounds to claim innocence through ignorance or compulsion. Walk away free or be forever guilty.