I was amongst those arrested at the ‘Lawyers for Freedom of Assembly’ walk on Dec 9 to commemorate International Human Rights Day and to defend freedom of speech and assembly.

I was intimidated by the police force even before the protest started at around 7am. They were taking so many photos of me as I stood alone beside the Sogo building. Around 10 of them stood next to me whilst looking at me menacingly.

When the protest was being dismantled, before we could disperse as ordered by the police, I heard a rude announcement repeated on the loudspeaker “Tangkap perempuan dengan poster tu (Catch that woman with the poster)!” Suddenly I was surrounded by many uniformed and non-uniformed police officers. The officers, some of them male, started touching me and tried to take away my poster. I refused since they did not identify themselves or declare the charges against me.

They pulled and pushed me roughly into a police van and quickly drove off. Inside the van, a female officer shouted and pointed at me when I demanded to know why they were being so atrocious. They preached some religious Islamic sermons to me. In my defense, I replied that if one is a good Muslim, one would not have behaved in such an atrocious manner especially police officers who are supposed to protect the public, not violate human rights.

We were unlawfully detained at the police station and refused lawyers until about 3pm when they suddenly changed their minds. We were made to wait in a space surrounded by around 60 officers despite there being only eight of us peaceful protesters. They did not even turn the fans on despite the heat.

We were detained from around 9am until 11pm with no clear explanation until we were brought to the police cells on remand. We were woken up early at 6am the next day to be brought to the Jalan Duta court complex. We were further remanded at the court cells until 12pm before being brought to court to set bail and trial date. During that time, several plainclothes male officers, Special Branch officers, sat in front of the female cell and watched us menacingly.

The conditions of toilets in the court police cells violates detainees’ human rights, including sexual violation towards both male and female detainees. The toilet walls are not fully covered. It only has a very low and small wall, just a little higher than knee level. Detainees, especially females, when undressing can be observed from outside the cells by both police officers and other detainees. The front and sides of the female cell is right in front of a busy path and the central door leading upstairs to the court.

In one instance, two female detainees (unrelated to our case) were observed by many male officers and other detainees whilst trying to undress to go to the toilet. Since they were handcuffed together, it was clearly difficult for the detainees to bend down at the same time in such a narrow and small space. Moreover, the female officer who brought them into the cell was shouting at them for no reason and making fun of them while using the toilet.

Fellow female detainee arrested at the protest Latheefa Koya and myself had to uncomfortably withhold from using the toilet for many hours until 11am when our lawyers finally arrived and demanded the use of proper toilets outside.