Tuesday, May 08, 2012

Remembering the 1987 "Marxist Conspiracy"


Mr Tan
I have taken the excerpt from this website: http://remembering1987.wordpress.com/
Please post into your blog
"“Operation Spectrum” was mounted by the Singapore government on 21 May 1987 under the ISA. Sixteen individuals were arrested in the first wave, with another six detained soon after. Two of the lawyers (including a former Solicitor-General of Singapore) who represented these individuals were subsequently detained as well. The 24 arrested were mainly professionals such as lawyers, journalists, community and church workers and entrepreneurs.
The government alleged that the detainees were ‘Marxist conspirators’, without giving them the right of defence in an open court. Instead, public “confessions” were elicited under the threat of indefinite detention without trial. 
These “confessions” were repudiated in a press statement by nine of these individuals some months after their release.  Eight of them were immediately re-arrested the next day, while the ninth signatory was in England at the time of re-arrest. 
Nothing substantial or credible was ever produced to corroborate the government’s allegations. Later documents showed even greater ambiguity in the reasons behind the detentions in 1987. An injustice was perpetuated and continues to linger to this day. 
Function 8 Limited and MARUAH as well as other civil society organisations, have come together as partners to remember the 25th anniversary of Operation Spectrum through a series of activities.
A session themed That We May Dream Again. Remembering the 1987 “Marxist Conspiracy” will be held from 3pm to 7pm on Saturday 19th May, 2012 at Speakers’ Corner, Hong Lim Park.
Amongst other activities, survivors of the 1987 ‘Marxist Conspiracy’ will be sharing  stories of their lives before and after their detentions with members of the public."

Watch this Youtube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ekkGm1C9Vs&feature=youtu.be

Website
http://remembering1987.wordpress.com/

2 comments:

yujuan said...

Have a classmate who was among those arrested. At that time we were surprised and felt disgusted with her, until years later, met her on the street, and during tea time came to realise the truth behind the blinds, and what a fool we were to believe what the PAP Govt made us believe. They were made to confess, with various threats, in front of national TV for something they did not do.
The real face of this PAP Govt is to pull wool over our eyes, and they have perfected the art so well over the years, that "lies become the truth eventually."
Now whatever they say, it's in one ear, out the other ear. Trust is shattered forever.

Tan Choon Hong said...

It is important to keep the issue in the public eye so that perhaps in the future an enlightened administration might be persuaded to reopen the case and set the records straight. Hope we don’t have to wait till all the key players have gone to the afterlife.

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