INTERVIEW | Preacher Wan Ji Wan Hussin, who was recently released from Kajang prison after serving time for sedition, said he was driven to the verge of insanity from being placed in isolation for three months.
In an interview with Malaysiakini, the former religious adviser to the Penang chief minister said reciting the Holy Quran helped keep his head straight.
“Usually, the solitary confinement block is for those who fight (in prison), smoke cigarettes, or take drugs. They are isolated in a block called Blok Insaf (repentance block).
“Inmates are usually placed there for 14 days or less. But I spent the majority of my time there. I was there three months, 10 days.
“A room in that block has four beds to accommodate as many prisoners. Other inmates were allowed to share the room with two or three others, but I was only permitted to spend time there alone,” Wan Ji recalled in the interview.
With that, he got the dubious honour of becoming the only prisoner who spent his incarceration in Blok Insaf alone, he quipped.
“I was depressed, almost on the verge of insanity. Luckily I memorised the Quran. Those who didn’t may have ended up mad,” he said.
Wan Ji was fully released from prison last Friday (March 22), about six months after he started his nine-month jail term for sedition.
He began serving his jail term on Sept 25 over a 2014 sedition case linked to the Selangor sultan.
The preacher was previously let out of prison on Jan 1 under the Licensed Release of Prisoners programme, which allows a prisoner to live outside the jail, albeit with limited mobility, and the need to seek approval to conduct any activities.
Friends with ants
Aside from grappling with loneliness in a confined space, Wan Ji said he also lost track of the passage of time while being incarcerated - so much so that he did not even know the time for prayers.
This led to him establishing a “friendship” with something “unique” - ants.
“Being alone, ants became my friends. On the first day of my jailing, I felt like killing the ants that were swarming inside the cell.
“That (thought) changed 48 hours later. On the third day (of incarceration), I was following wherever the ants moved to,” he recalled.
The poor lighting in the cell, despite the light being switched on at all times, also affected his sight, he said.
This forced him to change to a new pair of eyeglasses as soon as he got released from prison.
He wondered whether his isolation was a norm practised by the authorities, or deliberately imposed on him.
A love story that never was
Previously, Wan Ji had related how during his incarceration, he finished reading more than 30 books and wrote several books and novels, including a fictional romantic novel centred around war-torn Kashmir.
The reading material was obtained from his lawyer whenever the latter came to visit him, he said.
“He (lawyer Saiful Izham Ramli) visited me every week and brought along reading material. The prison management only allowed three books at any point in time.
“So when you have finished reading a book, you can change to another one,” he recalled.
The fictional Kashmir love story he penned, titled “Cinta di Medan Kashmir” (Love in Kashmir) was of a love story hindered by the Islamic State militant movement, but later united by anti-terrorism rehabilitation efforts.
Wan Ji said he wrote up to 72 chapters of the story before it was confiscated by prison authorities.
On interacting with fellow prisoners, he said he was discouraged from doing so.
“If the warden sees you talking with others, he will show a signal for me to stop talking.
“That means I can only ‘steal’ small chats here and there.”
Wan Ji also related how he managed to talk an inmate out of his plan to commit suicide, and witnessing the conversion of a prisoner to Islam. - FMT
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