For the past two years, Internal Security Act detainee Hishamuddin Rais had laboured over his garden at the Kamunting Detention Camp in Perak using a broom to plough and a table tennis bat as a hoe.

On May 4, his efforts went to waste when the camp authorities destroyed his garden in a matter of minutes.

"I have kept the eggplants for two years. My papaya can already be eaten, while I've been eating kangkung (water convolvulus) with instant noodles," he said in an undated letter which was made available to malaysiakini yesterday.