Editing Malayan Emergency (section)

===Commonwealth===
====Torture====
During the Malayan conflict, there were instances during operations to find MNLA guerrillas where British troops detained and allegedly [[torture]]d villagers who were suspected of aiding the MNLA. Socialist historian Brian Lapping said that there was "some vicious conduct by the British forces, who routinely beat up Chinese [[Squatting|squatters]] when they refused, or possibly were unable, to give information" about the MNLA.{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} ''[[The Scotsman]]'' newspaper lauded these tactics as a good practice since "simple-minded peasants are told and come to believe that the communist leaders are invulnerable".{{Citation needed|date=December 2021}} Some civilians and detainees were also allegedly shot, either because they attempted to flee from and potentially aid the MNLA or simply because they refused to give intelligence to British forces.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}

Widespread use of arbitrary detention, punitive actions against villages, and use of torture by the police, "created animosity" between Chinese squatters and British forces in Malaya which was counterproductive to gathering good intelligence.<ref name="MAY">{{citation |last=Siver |first=Christi |title=The Other Forgotten War: Understanding Atrocities during the Malayan Emergency |date=2009 |work=Political Science Faculty Publications. 8 |url=http://digitalcommons.csbsju.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&context=polsci_pubs |publisher=College of Saint Benedict and Saint John's University |quote=<!-- Prepared for delivery at the 2009 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 3-6, 2009 -->}}</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}} <!--p38-39 -->

====Batang Kali Massacre====
During the [[Batang Kali massacre]], 24 unarmed civilians were executed by the [[Scots Guard]]s near a rubber plantation at Sungai Rimoh near [[Batang Kali]] in [[Selangor]] in December 1948. All the victims were male, ranging in age from young teenage boys to elderly men.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=210}} Many of the victims' bodies were found to have been mutilated and their village of Batang Kali was burned to the ground. No weapons were found when the village was searched. The only survivor of the massacre was a man named Chong Hong who was in his 20s at the time. He fainted and was presumed dead.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|title=New documents reveal cover-up of 1948 British 'massacre' of villagers in Malaya|newspaper=The Guardian|date=9 April 2011|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=30 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130930043116/http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/09/malaya-massacre-villagers-coverup|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|title=Batang Kali massacre families snubbed|newspaper=The Sun Daily|date=29 October 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131211224000/http://www.thesundaily.my/news/868710|archive-date=11 December 2013|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|title=UK urged to accept responsibility for 1948 Batang Kali massacre in Malaya|newspaper=[[The Guardian]]|date=18 June 2013|access-date=4 December 2013|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183747/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/18/malaysia-petition-batang-kali-massacre|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-19473258|title=Malaysian lose fight for 1948 'massacre' inquiry|website=BBC News|date=4 September 2012|access-date=13 January 2014|archive-date=3 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210103183737/https://www.bbc.com/news/world-19473258|url-status=live}}</ref> Soon afterwards the British colonial government staged a coverup of British military abuses which served to obfuscate the exact details of the massacre.{{sfn|Hack|2018|p=212}}

The massacre later became the focus of decades of legal battles between the UK government and the families of the civilians executed by British troops. According to Christi Silver, Batang Kali was notable in that it was the only incident of mass killings by Commonwealth forces during the war, which Silver attributes to the unique subculture of the Scots Guards and poor enforcement of discipline by junior officers.<ref>Siver, Christi L. "The other forgotten war: understanding atrocities during the Malayan Emergency." In APSA 2009 Toronto Meeting Paper. 2009.</ref>{{page needed|date=December 2021}}

====Concentration camps====
As part of the [[Briggs Plan]] devised by British General Sir [[Harold Rawdon Briggs|Harold Briggs]], one million civilians (roughly ten percent of Malaya's population) were forced from their homes by British forces. Tens of thousands of homes were destroyed, and many people were imprisoned in British concentration camps referred to with the euphemism "[[new village]]s". During the Malayan Emergency, 600 of these concentration camps were created.<ref name=Keo19/><ref name=Sa64/> The policy aimed to inflict [[collective punishment]] on villages where people were thought to support communism, and also to isolate civilians from guerrilla activity. Many of the forced evictions involved the destruction of existing settlements which went beyond the justification of [[military necessity]]. This practice is prohibited by Article 17 (1) of Additional [[Protocol II]] to the [[Geneva Conventions]], which forbid civilian internment unless rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.<ref name="Gifu">{{cite web|url=https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/apii-1977/article-17|title=Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of Non-International Armed Conflicts (Protocol II), 8 June 1977.: Article 17 - Prohibition of forced movement of civilians|publisher=International Humanitarian Law Databases}}</ref><ref name="MAY"/><ref name="MAL">{{cite book |author=Fujio Hara |title=Malaysian Chinese & China: Conversion in Identity Consciousness, 1945–1957 |date=December 2002 |publisher=University of Hawaii Press |pages=61–65}}</ref><ref name="Pamela Sodhy 1991 284–290">{{cite book |title=The US-Malaysian Nexus: Themes in Superpower-Small State Relations |pages=284–290 |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |author=Pamela Sodhy |year=1991}}</ref>

====Collective punishment====
A key British war measure was inflicting collective punishments on villages whose population were deemed to be aiding MNLA guerrillas. At [[Tanjung Malim|Tanjong Malim]] in March 1952, Templer imposed a twenty-two-hour house [[curfew]], banned everyone from leaving the village, closed the schools, stopped bus services, and reduced the rice rations for 20,000 people. The last measure prompted the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to write to the Colonial Office to note that the "chronically undernourished Malayan" might not be able to survive as a result. "This measure is bound to result in an increase, not only of sickness but also of deaths, particularly amongst the mothers and very young children". Some people were fined for leaving their homes to use external latrines. In another collective punishment, at [[Sungai Pelek|Sengei Pelek]] the following month, measures included a house curfew, a reduction of 40 percent in the rice ration and the construction of a chain-link fence 22 yards outside the existing barbed wire fence around the town. Officials explained that the measures were being imposed upon the 4,000 villagers "for their continually supplying food" to the MNLA and "because they did not give information to the authorities".<ref>{{cite book |author=Pamela Sodhy |title=The US-Malaysian nexus: Themes in superpower-small state relations |publisher=Institute of Strategic and International Studies, Malaysia |year=1991 |pages=356–365}}</ref>

====Deportations====
{{more detail needed|date="November 2021}}Over the course of the war, some 30,000 mostly ethnic Chinese were deported by the British authorities to mainland China.<ref name="the_malayan_emergency_2021_11_11_the_forum_bbc" /><ref>Chin, C. (2012). Dialogues with Chin Peng: New Light on the Malayan Communist Party. Chinese Edition.</ref> This would have been a war crime under Article 17 (2) of Additional Protocol II to the Geneva Conventions, which states: "Civilians shall not be compelled to leave their own territory for reasons connected with the conflict."<ref name="Gifu" />

==== Public display of corpses ====
During the Emergency it was common practice for British forces and their allies to publicly display the corpses of suspected communists and anti-colonial guerrillas. This was often done in the centers of towns and villages. Oftentimes British and Commonwealth troops would round up local children and forced them to look at the corpses, monitoring their emotional reaction for clues on whether they knew the dead. Many of the corpses publicly displayed by British forces belonged to guerrillas who had previously been allies of Britain during WWII.<ref name=":6">{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen and Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1399057417 |pages=83–84}}</ref>

A notable victim of these public corpse displays was MNLA guerrilla leader [[Liew Kon Kim]], whose corpse was publicly displayed in locations around British Malaya. At least two instances of public corpse displays by British forces in Malaya gained notable media attention in Britain, and were later dubbed "The Telok Anson Tragedy" and "The Kulim Tragedy".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen and Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1399057417 |pages=86}}</ref>

====Headhunting and scalping====
[[File:This Horror Must End.jpg|thumb|A '' [[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' article exposing newly uncovered images of British atrocities involving headhunting during the Malayan Emergency]]
During the war British and Commonwealth forces hired over 1,000 [[Iban people|Iban]] (Dyak) mercenaries from [[Borneo]] to act as jungle trackers.<ref name=":5">{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVHcEAAAQBAJ&dq=It+was+also+revealed+that+Britain+had+recruited+over+1,000+mercenaries+from+the+Iban+people+of+Borneo&pg=PR11 |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen & Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-39905-741-7 |location=[[Yorkshire]] |page=XI |language=en}}</ref> With a tradition of headhunting, they decapitated suspected MNLA members; the authorities held that taking the heads was the only means of later identification.<ref name=":1">{{cite book |last=Harrison |first=Simon |title=Dark Trophies: Hunting and the Enemy Body in Modern War |publisher=Berghahn |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78238-520-2 |location=Oxford |pages=157–158 |language=English}}</ref> Iban headhunters were permitted by British military leaders to keep the scalps of corpses as trophies.<ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=318}}</ref><ref name=":1" /> After the headhunting had been exposed to the public, the Foreign Office first tried to deny it was in use, before then trying to justify Iban headhunting and conducting damage control in the press.<ref name=":4">{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=316}}</ref> Privately, the Colonial Office noted that "there is no doubt that under [[international law]] a similar case in wartime would be a war crime".<ref name="MAL" /><ref name="Mark Curtis 61–71">{{cite book |author=Mark Curtis |title=The Ambiguities of Power: British Foreign Policy Since 1945 |date=15 August 1995 |pages=61–71}}</ref><ref name=":4" /> Skull fragments from a trophy head were later found to have been displayed in a British regimental museum.<ref name=":1" />

=====Headhunting exposed to British public=====
{{Main|British Malayan headhunting scandal}}

In April 1952, the [[Communist Party of Great Britain|British communist]] newspaper the ''[[Morning Star (British newspaper)|Daily Worker]]'' (later known as the ''Morning Star'') published a photograph of British [[Royal Marines]] inside a British military base openly posing with severed human heads.<ref name=":5" /><ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=315}}</ref> By republishing these images the British communists had hoped to turn public opinion against the war.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Creech |first=Maria |date=December 2021 |title=All Too Graphic: Leaked photographs of colonial atrocities during the Malayan 'Emergency' shocked postwar Britain |url=https://www.historytoday.com/archive/history-matters/all-too-graphic |journal=[[History Today]] |volume=71 |issue=12}}</ref> Initially British government spokespersons belonging to the [[Admiralty (United Kingdom)|Admiralty]] and the [[Colonial Office]] claimed the photograph was fake. In response to the accusations that their headhunting photograph was fake, the ''Daily Worker'' released another photograph taken in Malaya showing British soldiers posing with a severed head. Later the Colonial Secretary, [[Oliver Lyttelton]], confirmed to parliament that the ''Daily Worker'' headhunting photographs were indeed genuine.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Peng |first1=Chin |title=Alias Chin Peng: My Side of History |last2=Ward |first2=Ian |last3=Miraflor |first3=Norma |publisher=Media Masters |year=2003 |isbn=981-04-8693-6 |location=Singapore |pages=302}}</ref> In response to the ''Daily Worker'' articles exposing the decapitation of MNLA suspects, the practice was banned by Winston Churchill who feared that such photographs resulting from headhunting would expose the British for their brutality.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Hack |first=Karl |title=The Malayan Emergency: Revolution and Counterinsurgency at the End of Empire |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2022 |location=Cambridge |pages=317}}</ref> However, Churchill's order to discontinue the decapitations was widely ignored by Iban trackers who continued to behead suspected guerrillas.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Poole |first=Dan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eVHcEAAAQBAJ&dq=ignored+by+British+soldiers+and+the+decapitation&pg=PA23 |title=Head Hunters in the Malayan Emergency: The Atrocity and Cover-Up |publisher=Pen & Sword Military |year=2023 |isbn=978-1-39905-741-7 |location=[[Yorkshire]] |page=23 |language=en}}</ref>

Despite the shocking imagery of the photographs of soldiers posing with severed heads in Malaya, the ''Daily Worker'' was the only newspaper to publish them and the photographs were virtually ignored by the [[List of newspapers in the United Kingdom|mainstream British press]].<ref name=":4" /><gallery>
File:Malayan Emergency Iban headhunter.jpg|alt=|An Iban headhunter wearing a Royal Marine beret prepares a human scalp above a basket of human body parts.
File:Iban headhunter holding scalp during Malayan Emergency.jpg|An Iban headhunter posing with a human scalp
File:This is the War in Malaya.jpg|The ''Daily Worker'' exposes the practice of headhunting among British troops in Malaya. 28 April 1952.
File:Headhunters Malayan Emergency.jpg|Commonwealth soldiers pose with a severed head inside a British military base in Malaya during the Malayan Emergency
File:Malayan Emergency headhunting and poles.jpg|Two corpses and a severed head belonging to guerrillas killed by the [[Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment]].
File:Photo collection of British atrocities during the Malayan Emergency.png|Atrocity photographs (including headhunting) from the archives of the [[Working Class Movement Library]], Manchester.
File:Beheaded MNLA guerrilla, Malayan Emergency.png|Severed head of MNLA guerrilla commander Hen Yan, killed in 1952 by the [[Suffolk Regiment]].
File:Suspected MNLA guerrilla decapitated by British or Commonwealth during Malayan Emergency.png|Photographs of severed head of MNLA member held in the archives of the [[National Army Museum]], London.
</gallery>