The outspoken editor of the Malaysia-Today web portal was transferred a day earlier to the Kamunting ISA detention camp near Taiping, a former mining town in Perak named for peace.
For Marina and the rest of her entourage — her two daughters, one son-in-law and Raja Petra's cousin — the day was to get darker still.
Their nerves have been wrought since Sept 12 when some 10 police officers burst into the family home in Sungai Buloh near here and took away Raja Petra under the Internal Security Act, tearing apart the close-knitted family.
And on Monday, Home Minister Datuk Seri Syed Hamid Albar signed an order under Section 8 (1) of the ISA which instructed Raja Petra to be placed in the Kamunting camp for up to two years, purportedly for writing articles which had insulted Islam and could arouse anger among Muslims.
The drive up took about three hours, no thanks to ongoing roadworks at the Jelapang toll of the North-South Expressway which severely restricted traffic to a crawl.
The visit itself lasted only 45 minutes and the family was subjected to much red tape.
"Awful! A lot of can't do this, can't do that. We were treated like in kindergarten," Marina told The Malaysian Insider of her experience upon her return.
"For example, I wanted to pass him some effects, which I gave earlier to the officer to inspect. But when I was going to pass it to Pet, the officer said 'Cannot!'
"And when I was going to go off, I asked the officer 'Can I give him a kiss?' you know, because I'm very affectionate and it's these little affectionate gestures that have kept us married for 40 years, and the officer said 'Cannot! Itu kelakuan tak senonoh'," cried an outraged Marina, upset at the officer who dismissed her request as indecent.
Raja Petra, she reported, had been placed in solitary confinement cell, which thankfully is "not in a box of 6 feet by 8 feet with no windows."
"He has to be in solitary confinement for the next three months unless they find that he has been cooperative or has changed," she said.
But for today's visit, the intrepid 57-year-old had been allowed out to socialise freely. It was a "privilege" the family viewed with great trepidation.
"On the first visit, we're allowed to touch. It's the first day privilege which they then take away over the next nine months. This is how they break you.
"On the second visit, we will have to talk through a screen and use a phone. This is the demerit system. If you are a good boy and well-behaved, then they allow you to touch again," Marina elaborated.
She then related that her husband told her he had been "visited by three ustad to brainwash him" but her timely visit had saved him from their interrogations.
She also recounted how the family was put under the microscope for the duration of their visit inside. Several officers came up close to write down the conversations Raja Petra had with the family and frequently attempted to interrupt their limited visiting time, she said, provoking some rather violent emotions within her.
Their unyielding stance on many things caused the normally placid Marina to explode into rather colourful invectives as she vented her frustrations and fears during the course of the phone interview, particularly when one of the officers, a female, explicitly warned them against "passing any outside information to the detainees."
According to Marina, there is a very thick wall inside the camp. On one side of the wall is the block holding the isolated detainees; on the other side, another block holds detainees who are allowed to mingle and watch TV.
The only glimmer of sunshine for the renowned writer before his family visit was hearing shouts from beyond the wall. Apparently, the voices belonged to some members of the Hindu Rights Action Force (Hindraf) who were also arrested under the ISA last year when they held a protest march in downtown Kuala Lumpur demanding the long-forgotten rights of ethnic Indian citizens.
"He told me he heard them screaming 'Raja, we know you're here. We just saw you on TV with your wife.' That was his only way of keeping updated on what's going on in the world outside," related Marina.
Her husband's greatest worry, she said, was that three months down the road, the public would have forgotten his existence.
"He told me, 'Please tell them not to forget me'," Marina said, before excusing herself to attend a meeting with the lawyers on filing a new application against her husband's detention.
- The Malaysian Insider
