12 December 1948 On 12 December 1948, British troops executed 24 unarmed labourers, after separating them from the women and children at a Malayan rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh, near the small town of Batang Kali. The men were subjected to mock executions before being herded into a hut where they were shot down with automatic…
2 November 1948 On 2 November 1948, British troops and colonial police burned down the village of Kachau in the Malayan state of Selangor. The four hundred inhabitants were given two hours to collect their belongings. Arthur Creech Jones, the secretary of state for the colonies, questioned about the incident in the House of Commons,…
1 July 1948 On 1 July 1948, Sir Edward Gent, the governor of Malaya, using special emergency powers to prevent the threat of a popular insurgency against British rule, ordered the detention of Ahmad Boestamam, a leading democracy activist. At the time of his arrest, Boestamam had not given up the hope for independence through…
