This case is getting big where I am now. I’ll summarize, but of course you can easily google keywords like Benjamin Lim Jun Hui if you don’t want to just depend on one link
http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/01/14-year-old-jumps-to-his-death-after-unaccompanied-police-interrogation/14 year old boy was accused of molest. His accuser never pointed him out. No police line up or anything. There was an anonymous report filed. The only evidence was that he, or someone who looked like him, was caught on CCTV entering an elevator with the victim.
Bear in mind the usual caveats. CCTV footage is usually very poor. Low resolution, low fps, grainy and monochrome, taken from above at a terrible angle. In Singapore all kids wear school uniform, so they mostly look the same.
Boy has no history of violence, poor conduct, or sexual misbehavior. No prior complaints or disciplinary record. Ironically he was a police cadet.
He was picked up at school by 5 policemen. Taken away to be interrogated at ‘god knows where’ (no certainty where and under what circumstances he was interrogated). Denied counsel, access to parents or guardian, school representatives, etc. Police claimed he was interrogated in a public place, but no one has seen anything. No video of the interrogation has been proffered.
3 hours later this kid confessed and was released. He was sent home, and after that he committed suicide. He told his parents he didn’t do it.
Now I know this sounds like nothing to the average American. 14 year olds shoot up their school or neighbourhood all the time in the USA.
14 year olds committing gang rapes or robberies in Europe – commonplace. 14 year old murder and rape victims in India or South Africa – commonplace.
For Arabs, almost any 14 year old Egyptian or Syrian (prior to civil war) would know someone picked up and roughly interrogated by the police for reasons that are not even disclosed. Write some anti government graffiti on the school wall, and half the boys are locked up and beaten until someone confesses. That’s how young Syrians started the civil war – they just had enough of unjust police treatment.
Being roughly interrogated and railroaded into a confession was hardly a big thing in Singapore. It used to be much more common – and back then they squeezed a ‘Marxist’ confession out of you and imprisoned you indefinitely without a trial and came up with creative reasons why your family members should be fired from their jobs and denied bank loans.
I am actually concerned that the younger generation in a safe place like Singapore lack emotional resilience. Every ripple appears to be a tsunami to the local frogs living in this tiny well.
But it still doesn’t feel right. I try to intellectualize away my inner doubts, but I still don’t like it at all. I don’t like what the police did. I don’t like the way the school acted. The whole system irks me, even though it is 100% legal in Singapore and the ruling party has always won elections overwhelmingly.
But now come it doesn’t happen for other people? Black kids are killed all the time running from the police or acting defiant. But they don’t kill themselves after an interrogation.
Sometimes I feel that Singapore kids are just downright weak.
