1987 Untracing the Conspiracy

Year
2015
Runtime
60 mins
Language
English
Subtitle
Bahasa Malaysia
Director
Jason Soo
Country
Singapore
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A film examining Singapore’s history through the depiction of narrow corridors, a suit and a tie, and a pristine book. In 1987, 22 people were arrested under Singapore’s Internal Security Act (ISA). Accused of being involved in a Marxist conspiracy to establish a communist state, many detainees were tortured and then coerced into implicating themselves and their friends on public television. Featuring interviews with ex-detainees and political exiles, the film focuses on the first 30 days of their ordeal. The ex-detainees describe various physical and psychological techniques used by their interrogators. This ignoble history of the ISA is a damning indictment of how detention without trial is not just a special kind of law, but a suspension of law.

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