PSM 6: An unlawful detention

How can Najib talk to the Pope with a clear conscience when at home, six people... are held without trial?

Most people would not have known him personally but they would have read of him and know that he comes from Sungei Siput. Few, especially those he has helped, will disagree that he is a champion of the poor and the forgotten.

To those whose lives he improved, he is a king among ordinary men. To the government, he stands accused of plotting to overthrow the King.

Today, as his health deteriorates, he is kept in isolation, under the draconian 1969 Emergency Ordinance (EO) of Malaysia.

If you thought it couldn’t happen to you, then you might wish to think again.

The man in question is Dr D Michael Jeyakumar, the Sungei Siput MP. On June 25, he and 29 other people from the Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) were arrested for allegedly possessing communist propaganda material and so were considered a threat to national security.

The authorities claim that the PSM was a danger to the public as it was planning to revive the communist party and then topple the government by starting a revolution.

According to some reports, PSM members had been forced to sign confessions in which they admitted that there was a plot to overthrow the government and that some members had undergone suicide bombing training.

Some serious allegations have surfaced regarding the treatment of the 30 people. Women were physically abused, forced into an overcrowded cell and had to drink from a toilet bowl, to quench their thirst.

The conditions in the cell were deplorable with many unable to relieve themselves and had to beg to go to use the toilet which apparently was not working. Other ill-treatment involved the inhumane and life-threatening treatment of a diabetic.

Among the activists who were detained without trial with Jeyakumar are PSM deputy president M Saraswathy, central committee members Choo Chon Kai and M Sugumaran, Youth chief R Sarathbabu and Sungai Siput branch secretary A Letchumanan. They are collectively known as “The PSM 6”.


Last month, they were arrested and charged. After being released, they were re-arrested on July 2. There were also allegations that the Special Branch had tricked some members of PSM who were illiterate, into signing statements alleging their involvement in a violent revolution. It was also alleged that their responses for being members of PSM and their relationship with Bersih 2.0, had been written for them.
Unflinching service
The authorities may wish to tarnish Jeyakumar’s reputation but his colleague, another doctor, writes of the young Jeyakumar who was at that time, performing a stint in the Sarawak General Hospital (SGH), in the 1980s. The following is his description of the young medical officer:

Even then he was most outstanding as a government officer of uncommon social responsibility, providing patient service unflinchingly regardless of heavy workloads. Indeed he showed his concern for patients well beyond his immediate patient care responsibilities at SGH.

I recall that as a junior medical officer at SGH, he actively canvassed for:
The safety and comfort of patients on long boat journeys, while on referral from Kapit district hospital to Sibu Hospital;

Injured workers’ timely entitlements under the Workers Compensation Scheme; especially timely and more just awards by medical boards to injured workers;

The legislatively prescribed responsibilities of Socso in the rehabilitation of permanently disabled workers, and weakness of Socso thereof; and

The occupational safety of mostly Dayak logging workers in Sarawak, or rather, lack thereof.
This is all the more remarkable as he comes from a comfortable upper middle class family in Penang.
I was disappointed in myself for having failed in my effort to recommend him for Perkhidmatan Cemerlang award.



Nonetheless, he was a personal inspiration to me, and he will always be such.

I have no doubt that it is a highest level of humanity which made him not just a physician, but an uncommon one. He has dedicated the last three-four decades of his life as much to his Dayak patients in Sarawak as to the Indian plantation workers, both groups being the marginalised of the marginalised in Malaysian society.

His humanity finds expression in his leadership of Malaysian Socialists.
We might not agree with the principles of PSM but if we are to have free, fair and clean elections, we have to allow everyone to express their views.
Today, Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak will pay a visit to the Pope in the Vatican City.
How can Najib hold his head high up and talk to the Pope with a clear conscience when at home, six people and possibly several thousand others, are held without trial, their future destroyed, their lives in jeopardy, just because they want to uphold their rights to free speech and freedom to hold peaceful assemblies?
Is the Vatican going to remove all its crucifixes for Najib’s visit?

Mariam Mokhtar is a columnist with FMT.