Even 23 years after being detained under the Internal Security Act in Malaysia's largest political crackdown, Operasi Lalang , the memories still live in Nasir Hashim's mind.

"When I got out people asked if I was okay, and I said I was fine... But much later when I was at a police station [...] an officer kicked the bars and it all came flooding back.

"I was taken through many doors blindfolded and my interrogators often banged the doors and when you cannot see anything, the noise takes over you," he said on the anniversary of Ops Lalang last night at the Chinese Assembly Hall.

NONE Nasir, ( left) who is now PSM chairperson and Kota Damansara assemblyperson, spoke of his memories as a political detainee at the launch of the third edition of 445 days under the ISA.

The book authored by fellow Ops Lalang detainee Kua Kia Soong was launched yesterday together with Teo Soh Lung's account of detention under the ISA in Singapore, Beyond the Blue Gate .

Held during Operation Spectrum , in May 1987, the lawyer was hauled up for chairing a Law Society committee which had given recommendations on the Publications and Printing Presses Act.

"When we were arrested, it took my friends and I by surprise. A friend told us a few weeks earlier that he was followed by the Internal Security Department (Singapore equivalent of the Special Branch) but we told him he was paranoid to think he was important enough to be arrested," she told the full-house audience of about 150.

Torture and humiliation

T NONE hen 38, Teo was among 22 arrested in Operation Spectrum , following which a Bill was set in motion to bar lawyers from commenting on the law. That law still stands until today.

In his review of Teo's book, former ISA detainee and Hulu Kelang assemblyperson Saari Sungib said that reading the Singaporean's account of the torture she had to endure had angered him.

"She was slapped several times on the day of her arrest (and later during her detention) was not allowed to wear panties and had to request for it, (and) had to wear (sanitary) pads hung with rope during (her) period.

"In Malaysia, female detainees had to show the officials their stained pads before being given a new one as a way to humiliate them," shared Saari, who opined that Ops Lalang was inspired by Operation Spectrum .

Teo was released after four months, following calls for her freedom by international law organisations and campaigns by Malaysian activists like Kua and the Anti-ISA movement, while the Singapore Law Society kept silent.

Even the Catholic Church, which held mass for the Catholic detainees, was made to stop after the Archbishop was called up by the authorities, the soft-spoken, slightly built woman said.

Two years in solitary confinement

"One month after my release Ops Lalang happened, and I was devastated that friends who had called for my freedom were now in trouble. But there were no (civil society) groups, we had no guts to do anything, not even to hold placards in front of the Malaysian embassy," she confessed.

NONE She was re-arrested the following year, after issuing a press statement denying what had happened in 1987 and was detained for two years and two months in solitary confinement.

According to her charge sheet, she was detained for "trying to subvert existing institutions using communist tactics with the view of establishing a Marxist state".

Saari noted that his own charge sheet accused him of collecting grenade launchers, Molotov cocktails and firearms.

"(I was) angry and frustrated when I read the charge sheet but helpless. They were all fabricated... and shows the level the state authority will stoop to," he said.

They can detain you for anything

At the forum which followed, "seasoned prisoner" Hishamuddin Rais, who was detained under ISA twice, said that it goes to show that the government can get you on anything, so you might as well forget about being careful.

"Don't worry about it. They can detain you under ISA even for wearing yellow underwear.

"My biggest regret is that I was not seditious enough (to warrant the arrest) so now I am working hard to be as seditious as possible," he quipped.

A way to fight back against the draconian law, said the activist, whose brazen wit had the audience in stitches, is to not give in to the psychology of fear and humiliation.

"When there is an arrest there will be a lot of media coverage but it's not for us (detainees) because we're blindfolded and taken somewhere - I still don't know where I was.

dj jamal hishammudin rais and teresa kok forum 270910 04 "It is for society to be afraid, because you don't know what's happening and you think that it will be like the prisons in Tehran or like in Guantanamo Bay," said Hishamuddin ( right ) who has been imprisoned in Australia, India and Russia aside from his homeland.

And despite the torture that the former detainee spoke of, including being kept underground for 60 days with only a vent as a source of oxygen and getting body parts burnt, the activist's advice is to "not worry".

"The best thing to do when you are detained is to detach. You look at the keyhole, it is only small, but you can't do anything about it so go to sleep and enjoy yourself," he said.