Tan Hoon Cheng : Cop says I look very steady

By Zubaidah Nazeer, the Electric New Paper
September 16, 2008

THROUGHOUT her 18-hour ordeal of being detained by police, Malaysian reporter Tan Hoon Cheng remained calm, if inwardly concerned about what would happen to her.

So much so that one policewoman said she looked ‘very steady’.

But there was one moment when Miss Tan, 33, was moved to tears.

That was when she saw people lining the road to support her.

Only hours earlier, around 8.30pm on Friday, the police had picked up the Sin Chew Daily reporter from her house in Bukit Mertajam, Penang.

As she was being driven out of the Penang police station, she saw a group of people gathered outside.

She told The New Paper over the phone last night: ‘I saw my colleagues, some other media friends and some political figures standing outside, showing their support for me. I felt so touched that I couldn’t help crying.’

As the police car passed the main gate, her editor rushed to the window and tried to prevent it from moving further. He knocked on the glass to check whether Miss Tan was indeed inside.

She said: ‘I dabbed away my tears. He saw me and signalled his support.’

She later wrote in her own newspaper how seeing this had given her strength as ‘everybody was throwing their support and belief behind me’.

Miss Tan had braced herself for the worst – that she could be detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for a long time. But a policeman told her the next day at 2.25pm that she was free to go. By then, Miss Tan had spent some 18 hours in the lock-up.

She had been hauled in over a report in which she quoted Penang’s Bukit Bendera Umno chief Datuk Ahmad Ismail as saying that the Chinese community were ‘squatters’ in Malaysia.

This was at a rally speech during the Permatang Pauh by-election that returned opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to parliament.

Show-cause letters

Last Thursday, Sin Chew was among three publications served show-cause letters from the Home Ministry for breaching guidelines with their ‘sensitive’ reports.

Miss Tan said of the night the police came: ‘I was just about to eat some kueh, but my mind was filled with worry over what would happen to the paper.’

When she answered the knock on the door, a policewoman told her they were taking her in for questioning. ‘I saw about 10 other plainclothes policemen. I was shocked… I did not expect this at all. I tried to calm myself down.’

The senior journalist demanded to see a warrant of arrest but was told it was not needed. The policewoman said they had an order to arrest her under the ISA and showed her a letter.

Ms Tan quickly called her editor who told her to notify their legal adviser.

She said: ‘I was advised not to let them in yet, but I thought I’d rather resolve this in a peaceful manner so I went willingly.’

The arrest stunned her mother, Madam Khor Ah Heok, 59, who couldn’t sleep the whole night out of worry . (See report on facing page.)

According to her first-person account in Sin Chew Daily, she said she was led to a ‘very cold room’ at the police station.

She wrote: ‘While I waited, a policewoman who was in the room with me appeared to shiver from the cold too.

‘To break the silence, I decided to talk to her. She then told me that I ‘seemed very steady’.’

At the lock-up, her thumbprint was taken and she was given something to eat before they took her to a cell.

They agreed to her request for the lights to be left on. She said: ‘The policewoman told me not to worry as she was (standing guard) there.’

Miss Tan said the cell was smaller than a room in an apartment but it had a toilet and wooden bed.

‘I kept telling myself to sleep because who knows what will come the next day. I wanted to make sure I was mentally rested to face anything.’

But her mind was fraught with worry and she hardly slept that night.

She spent the night listening to the sound of ‘mosquitoes buzzing’ and ‘water dripping’ nearby, while thinking about how to to reassure her parents when they see her the next day.

The next morning, she was handed some clothing and toiletries which the police said were from her colleagues.

After meeting her parents around 8.30am, she bade them ‘goodbye’, not knowing when she would see them next.

She told The New Paper: ‘I was then told to get in a police car and they told me they were taking me to Bukit Aman (the federal police headquarters in Kuala Lumpur). My heart sank and I thought the worst was coming.’

But after a while, the car turned back and she was taken to a Penang police station. That was when she began to feel the first signs of hope.

She said: ‘The police told me they were done with the statements. But when they told me I was free to go, I couldn’t believe it at first, so I asked again.’

She was taken home to an emotional reunion. Her handphone would not stop ringing and she received many SMSes from relatives, colleagues, friends, politicians from all parties as well as former schoolmates.

Asked whether she regretted writing the report, she said: ‘I never have regrets. This is the job we do and I was merely wrote what I heard, no agenda.’

She was the only one who reported the quote about the Chinese being squatters, though other reporters have said they heard Mr Ahmad saying it.