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| Alan Shadrake |
Alan Shadrake is the author of Once a jolly hangman, dissecting Singapore’s use of capital punishment, throwing up questions about the independence of Singapore's judiciary. For his pains, he was charged with contempt of court, found guilty (of course) and sentenced to six week’s imprisonment and a fine of S$20,000. After failing at appeal (of course, again) he served his sentence 1 June to 9 July 2011.
I began the six weeks prison sentence on June 1. Because I couldn’t pay the fine, another two weeks were added. With remission for good behaviour this would mean five and a half weeks. I had been ordered to surrender to the sheriff at the Supreme Court at 9 a.m. and was quite looking forward to the experience as I defiantly told a Straits Times reporter who turned up mysteriously at a lively pre-jail party at The Old Brown Shoe, a British pub on Bukit Timah Road the night before. The words that headlined the report announced that I was going to have a ‘ball’ in Changi Prison. Despite having a slight hangover, I was awake early and arrived at the sheriff’s office dead on time.
My lawyer M. Ravi came with me and a few moments later I was being handcuffed and manacled, then locked in a tiny cell inside a police van which sped off to Changi Prison. I always wondered why such stringent security precautions were taken wherever I went each time I was in police hands. The answer was always ‘standard procedure’ and that everyone was treated the same way – murderers, drug traffickers, robbers, gangsters and terrorists. During the journey, being shackled and handcuffed with my hands behind my back and kept in such tight confinement, I asked the guards who would save me if we were involved in an accident, and the van turned over, bursting into flames? The response was a few chuckles from the other side of the cell.
At Changi Prison I was taken to an ‘admittance’ room, this time surrounded by about six prison officers. I was the only prisoner being admitted at that moment. I was told later that this was for ‘security’ reasons as the prison authorities were trying to keep my presence there a complete secret. I became known as the VIP – a Very Important Prisoner! My holdall which contained spare clothes and three books – the maximum permitted – with provocative titles like 1984 by George Orwell, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and Fahrenheit 541 by Ray Bradbury – were returned to me later in my cell. Books of a political nature are normally banned but it seemed whoever approved them had no idea what they were about. While still in the ‘admittance’ room I was ordered to undress for a strip search, then given a pair of black shorts, a white t-shirt and a pair of painful, plastic sandals which soon caused sores between my toes!
My belongings were listed and photographed and put in plastic bags which I had to sign as all being present and correct. Next I was photographed and finger-printed. Moments later, four guards – two in front and two behind – plus a senior officer were escorting me along interminable corridors, past dozens of cells which were carefully curtained off until I reached Cell No. 504. Inside were two other prisoners, both Chinese, one in his late twenties, the other late thirties, and both doing time for ‘white collar’ crimes, they told me after we were introduced.
Source: Yawning Bread, August 1, 2011
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