BE MORE PROFESSIONAL KUA, IT’S NOT ONLY YOUR FAMILY WHO SUFFERED, ALL CAUGHT IN DR M’S SWOOP ALSO SUFFERED – BUT NONE HIDE BEHIND THEIR NGO STATUS TO AVENGE DR M LIKE A BN POLITICIAN

The pain of seeing his family suffer pushed this former lawmaker to the limit.

BEING detained under the now-repealed Internal Security Act three decades ago had such a demoralising effect on Dr Kua Kia Soong that the former DAP lawmaker decided to record his experiences in a book after his release.

Kua, now 67, vividly remembers being awakened by police in his home at 2.30am and being taken away in front of his wife and two young children – who were just three and six years old then – for being a threat to national security.

“I lost 445 days of my free life which I could have spent with friends and family, savouring nature and culture and gaining knowledge,” he said in an e-mail interview.

He was also said to have made a speech at a forum on Aug 21, 1987, urging all organisations to safeguard and protect mother tongue education; and at another event on Sept 20 the same year, claimed that the division of bumiputra and non-bumiputra was “divisive”.

Dr Kua said he was first held for 60 days at the Police Remand Centre near Batu Caves, Selangor.

“I had to keep to a strict discipline of staying alert and hopeful and not allow myself to be depressed or continually lie down to sleep.

“I did taichi and physical exercises to stay healthy and ensured that my mind was active, composing songs and poetry and (outlines) for books,” he said.

One of those books was 445 Days Under the ISA-Operation Lalang 1987-89, written upon his release.

The 60 days of solitary confinement in a windowless room with a naked bulb on all the time was akin to mental torture, he said.

Meals were nasi bungkus with rice, a piece of fish or chicken, and some vegetables.

“The strain on my family was very clear to see especially during the first 60 days when the Special Branch played on their nerves and emotions by threatening to cut short family visits or not allowing family visits at all if my wife spoke to the press.

“I could see the pain suffered by my wife and children as they tried to carry on with their lives and after we (the detainees) were sent to Kamunting,” he said.

Kua said after he was transferred to Kamunting for the rest of his detention, it pained him to know that his wife Anne, son Huaying and daughter Bihua had to take the train to Taiping where they would arrive at 4.30am and then walk to the Rest House before they could get to the detention centre to visit him.

Kua said although he was not physically tortured during the period, he was sometimes threatened with it if he refused to answer questions.

“As a patriotic Malaysian who had come home to serve his country when I could have lived comfortably in the United Kingdom, it was traumatic to undergo incarceration in a seeming police state.

“That was what detention without trial felt like,” he said.

– ANN