Recalling decade behind bars, Anwar says self-discipline key to surviving MCO

PKR president Anwar Ibrahim recalled his life behind bars citing self-discipline as a key to survival.

In an FB live broadcast last night, he told Malaysians that having a strict schedule and keeping the mind sharp was keep to overcoming the boredom and restlessness causing by conditions of the movement control order (MCO) which is currently in force.

“I had a strict schedule (when) in Sungai Buloh Prison. I make sure I finish a book in two days, memorising a [Quran chapter] in one week and also exercise between 45 minutes to one hour a day so that my body will not be weak," said the Port Dickson MP.

“My schedule is like this: rise at 5am, read the Quran, have the subuh prayers, simple breakfast then start reading, then Zuhur prayers, reading again," he told his audience, going on to detail the various prayer times of the day.

Anwar said that which it involves some restrictions the MCO is much easier to endure as the people can still interact and communicate with their families and loved ones.

He called for Malaysians to be calm while enduring the MCO period.

“Now is like home detention, but we have our family, we can cook, we can communicate, we can do our gardens for a bit, so it is different from the jail,” he said.

Last year he had quipped that he survived on a diet of rotten fish and black tea while in prison.

Anwar has experienced three separate lengthy stints of incarceration totalling more than a decade behind bars. 

The first was in 1974 when he was detained under the Internal Security Act for leading student protests against rural poverty and hunger. He spent 20 months in the Kamunting detention centre.

Anwar was also sentenced to prison in 1999 on sodomy and abuse of power charges, a year after then-premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad had sacked him as deputy premier. He spent five and a half years in prison.

His third stint came during former premier Najib Abdul Razak's administration when he was jailed in 2015 after being found guilty of sodomising his former aide Mohd Saiful Bukhari Azlan.

Anwar was released from prison on May 16 in 2018 after receiving a royal pardon following Pakatan Harapan's victory in the last general election.

The PKR leader and his supporters have always maintained that the charges were false and his imprisonment was politically motivated.  - Mkini