Two Faces: Detention Without Trial Syed Husin Ali

TWO FACES records Syed Husin Alis experiences during his six-year detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA). His detention followed a spate of demonstrations in 1974 by students who supported the peasants in Baling, Kedah, and protested against poverty and the rise in prices of daily necessities.
Toward the end of the second year of his detention at Kamunting, he was put in solitary confinement for six months in an unknown place in Kuala Lumpur. During this time he was interrogated and subjected to all kinds of torture and harassment.
There was an attempt to implicate him with a number of politicians and journalists who were then detained for alleged involvement in a communist conspiracy in Singapore and Malaysia. Interestingly, there were also attempts to implicate some senior UMNO leaders, including Dr. Mahathir Mohamad.
TWO FACES links some personal experiences of the author with the social and political context of the time.