HORRIBLE FORMS OF TORTURE

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVIII, Issue 23316, 27 September 1945, Page 5

HORRIBLE FORMS OF TORTURE

Singapore Prison Camp Commission Report By Telegraph —N Z Preus A-.-a - Copvrlgln BRISBANE. Sept. 26. Horrible forms of Japanese torture almost beyond the limits of human endurance, a complete lack of medical facilities, and deaths from starvation in Sime Road internment camps, in Singapore, are described in the report of a commission appointed to take evidence from internees. The report says that the conditions under which the internees were detained by military police were rigorous in the extreme. They were crowded, irrespective of race, sex, or health, in small cells or cages. No bedding or coverings of any kind were provided, and bright lights were kept burning overhead all night. From 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. the inmates had to sit up straight on the bare floor, with their knees up. Nearly all the inmates suffered t’rorh enteritis or dysentery. The food supplied was less than half that supplied by our own Prison Department as punishment diet for Asiatics. The report adds that the buildings occupied by the Japanese military police resounded all day and night with blows, with the bellowings of the inquisitors and the shrieks of the tortured. The methods used to obtain answers from the victims included: Beatings with iron bars, brass rods, bamboo sticks and wet ropes all over

the body. For water torture, the victim was held down and water poured down his throat until he could hold no more. He was then beaten over his distended stomach, or a Japanese jumped on his stomach. Burning with cigarette ends on the most sensitive parts of the body was another torture. Several Asiatics had petrol poured on their stomachs an/ ignited. The report records that of 57 internees, 12 died of sickness and two were executed.