Ex-top editor, ISA detainee Said Zahari dies

Said Zahari

PETALING JAYA: Said Zahari, a one-time editor-in-chief of the Malay-language newspaper Utusan Melayu and former political detainee of 17 years under Lee Kuan Yew’s rule, has passed away at 88.

His eldest son Roesman Mohd Said told The Star that this former journalist, who was involved in anti-colonialism movement in the 1950s and 1960s, died in his sleep at around 12 noon on Tuesday.

A strong advocate of press freedom, Said moved to Malaysia to join his adult children in the 1980s after he was released from his long detention in Changi Prison, Singapore. He continued to retain his Singapore citizenship.

Said, born in Singapore, was known to have led a journalists’ strike against the takeover of Utusan Melayu newspaper by UMNO.

He was detained by the government of Singapore on Feb 2, 1963, along with over 100 other famous politicians and activitists in the well-known Operation Coldstore -- one day after he was named chairman of Parti Rakyat Singapura.

Said, who was struck with several strokes in recent years that immobilised him, was detained without trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Allegations against him included being a communist. Amnesty International declared him as a “prisoner of conscience” in the 1970s.

In a documentary, Said detailed his detention life where he was kept in solitary confinement for long period in poor condition and threatened with death if he did not choose to confess his alleged crimes and cooperate with the authority.

Some of those who were detained together with him were Singaporean politicians Lim Chin Siong, Dr Poh Soo Kai, Dr Lim Hock Siew, as well as Malaysian student Tan Sri Lim Guan Teik. Lim Guan Teik, now chairman of Muda Holdings Bhd, taught Said Mandarin while in detention there.

Said, released in 1979, had written three memoirs linked to his long detention in Singapore.

Despite facing financial difficulties in the past 30 years due to the lack of income, Said had declined an offer of financial help from a local Malay tycoon-politician, he told this writer in a past interview.

Singaporeans and Malaysians who look to him as an icon often visited him in his rented home in Subang and later a tiny flat in Shah Alam.

Last month, National laureate Datuk A. Samad Said visited Said for the first time since their Utusan days. The writer and poet asked Said for permission to kiss him before leaving the flat.