Saturday, December 02, 2006

A Brief about my HungerStrike

This is the 10th day of my on going HungerStrike, and most of it so far was done while I was in prison. I began at 0000hr on 23.Nov.2006 which was the final day of our joint trial. I plan to continue this until my co-fighters Dr. Chee & Mr. Gandhi are both released from prison. During this HungerStrike I will not consume any solid food, and will only drink, and remain hungry all the way. I will only stop on my own announcement.

This is not a suicide, this is a political and civil action instead, so I will drink at most time, and will take in nutrients via liquid form. I stopped all drinking for about 2 and half days in prison between 1530hr 20.Nov.2006 to 1030hr 2.Dec.2006, as posted in this msg.
(http://uncleyap-news.blogspot.com/2006/12/prison-repeatedly-denied-me-to-meet-dr.html)

I am pleased to tell the Internet community that I already have a proven way to conduct HungerStrike in QueensTown Remand Prison without violating prison's rule, and there are reason to belive that it can meet rules of other prisons in the world, I am sharing it with fellow activists globally via Internet.

The prison allows fasting by e.g. Muslim, activist have to declare to be fasting for political faith aclaiming equivilant to religious faith in terms of civil and constitutional rights. It is unlikely for prison to enforce that prisoners must consume all the provided meals by 100% without any left-over. I told the senior officer that I will consume the LIQUID portion of all provided meals leaving the SOLID portion, this happened on the 3rd day of my imprisonment.

During the 1st and 2nd day, I had refused to collect or accept the meal trays (a plastic multi-compartment food tray with a lid / cover). This caused the prison to take up a big series of hand and soft exercises trying to change my mind. I was warned to face punishment initially, and I volunteered to have my imprisonment extended, but they didn't like the idea. Then they told me that punishment can include LKy famiLEE LEEgime's notorious caning, I am excited to face that challenge, but they changed their mind, and they had counsellors & doctors & psycologist to talk to me... I could see a big package of tax-pay-money wasting exercises lined up for me, so I told the senior officer that I show my sincere co-operation to do my best to stay within the prison's rule to make everyone's job easier, by accepting the meal tray, and try to consume all the LIQUID part of it.
During the 1st and 2nd day, Dr. Ooi had his staff provided me with a cup of glucose powder + water mixture on each day. They refused to give me that from the 3rd day onwards, but this mixture is requested by me, but the prison had that to provide to religious fasting prisoners who are at some medical risks, and Dr. Ooi asked me on the 1st day about it as one of the alternative consideration, and I accepted the mixture since it is a liquid food.

QueensTown prison consider prisoners who refused 3 consequtive meals as unacceptable HungerStrike by their rules, and warned me about possible punishments, however, my YARD time and VISITING had not been deprived. The 146th reported that my family members did not applied to visit me, what they didn't read from my blog post is: I told all my family members that I will recline all their visits regardless of my condition. My sister belived that I will die in my hungerstrike, but now they all know that I am alive a kicking, so they will not be unnecessarily worried the next time I go to jail. :-)

Beside simply scooping up liquid from meal tray, I actually used several techniques to extract nutrients. E.g. oral fruit juicer technique, where by I will chew either apple or orange and spit out the remaining pulp after sucking their juice. The other techniqe is to stir cooked food such as fried BeeHoon in warm water to extract some oil; salt; carbohydrate; by drinking only the water leaving the BeeHoon. I will chew juicy vegitable to extract their liquid and then spit out their remainding pulp also. :-)

I am very sure that QueensTown prison carefully prepared all the meal trays before sending to my cell where I have 2 other cell mates, this include weighing and taking many digital photos of each tray! After each meal, they also weighted and photographed each tray to make very detailed reports and records - poor tax payers I am so sorry for your monies! Further, the cover of my meal tray is specially marked, my cell mates were clearly briefed not to eat from the WRONG TRAY, there are however many interesting incidents, I will those post in the future.

The 146th reported that I spat my food, yes, and I know that there are many yacky photos of that in the reports on famiLEE LEEgime's desk of my meal trays after my consumption.

I thought famiLEE LEEgime subscribed to the concept of FREE TRADE, however, the prison told me that they have some rules against barter trading of food after their first world UY diet reports suffered a series of confusions. E.g. entire chicken drumstick including bone disappeared from my tray, and got found in my cellmate's tray! I gave them my simple answer that I had traded drumstick for my cell mate's orange. :-)

If I published all the mockeries about my 10 days of QueensTown Remand Prison, it might be a thick book indeed. However, I am not in that mood now. I am very concern about Dr. Chee who is still suffering in there with Mr. Gandhi.

I am actually going for 10km version of Singapore Marathon tomorrow morning while on my HungerStrike. Online Registration I found already closed, but I will just attempt the 10km without registration. This is not an egolistic exercise, but it is a chance to test my own limits. Before coming online to make this post, I already taken 2 bottles of Essence of Chicken with Chinese herbs, and a can of RedBull, I will take more RedBull before my run, but still will take no solid food. I am not physically training myself, but it is a test and exercise of my power of will, which is the material of the fight against LKy famiLEE LEEgime. I will run while against the feeling of hunger.

This feeling of hunger had been with me in the past 10 days, and will continue on longer. Nothing will be able to fulfill my hunger in my mind until I have a Singapore free of LKy famiLEE LEEgime.