Dr Lim Hock Siew, Singapore’s second longest-held political prisoner under the Internal Security Act challenged Presidential candidate Dr Tony Tan on Saturday to ‘categorically state’ that the people who were arrested in Operation Coldstore and Operation Spectrum were ‘terrorists’.
He was speaking at a memorial held in honor of former ISA detainee Tan Jing Quee who passed away in June this year. The memorial was attended by members of the opposition as well as Presidential candidate Tan Kin Lian.
Referring to a comment Dr Tony Tan made at The Online Citizen’s Face to Face 2 forum (watch video HERE) in which the presidential candidate and former Deputy Prime Minister justified the retention of the ISA due to threats of terrorism, Dr Lim said to resounding applause, ”I challenge Dr Tony Tan to categorically state that we are terrorists, so that we can have the opportunity to bring him to court and sue him for slander.”
“Either he is an ignoramous, or he is a blatant liar,” Dr Lim continued.
He also stressed that The PAP has been using the ISA not for security reasons but for “suppressing legitimate political opposition.”
Dr Lim then called for commission of inquiry to look into the detentions, not for a vendetta but as “validation of the truth”.
“It is to reveal all the facts so that objective historians can rewrite history,” he said.
