Batang Kali massacre: Families press for apology on 76th anniversary

Batang Kali massacre: Families press for apology on 76th anniversary


Published: Mar 10, 2025 9:55 AM
Updated: 1:28 PM



Summary

• Families of 24 victims killed by British troops during the 1948 Batang Kali massacre keep up demand for apology after 76 years.

• UK-based lawyers, Malaysian politicians continue to assist families and next of kin.

More than 70 years have passed since British soldiers killed 24 Malayan rubber tappers in Batang Kali, Selangor, but calls remain for a long-overdue apology from the UK government.

British lawyers gathered with Malaysian politicians and hundreds of others in Kuala Lumpur last night to mark the 76th anniversary of the Batang Kali massacre, Free Malaysia Today reported.

John Halford, the UK-based solicitor for the victims’ families, said it would be “morally right” for the UK to apologise as many governments had acknowledged their past atrocities despite having no legal obligation to do so.

“Sometimes, the demand of morality can be stronger than those of law,” said Halford, who cited a 2010 apology by then UK prime minister David Cameron over the 1972 Bloody Sunday massacre in Ireland.

Malaysian lawyer Quek Ngee Meng, representing an action committee on the Batang Kali massacre formed in the early 2000s, said the British government accepted the latest memorandum, which called for the acknowledgement of the massacre and a formal apology.

Quek shared that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office had promised a “substantive response” by this month.

Declassify records

Separately, MCA secretary-general Chong Sin Woon urged the UK government to declassify and release all historical records related to the massacre of Chinese villagers accused of harbouring communist insurgents.

He also urged the Malaysian government to ensure that the massacre is part of the national history syllabus to educate future generations on the realities of colonial rule.

According to FMT, also present was DAP veteran Tan Kok Wai, who said that a formal apology from the British government would help the affected family members to move on from the traumatic past.

DAP’s Tan Kok Wai

On Dec 11, 1948, soldiers from the Seventh Platoon of the Scots Guards entered the Sungai Rimoh rubber estate in Batang Kali.

They were carrying out operations against communist insurgents during the Emergency declared by the British colonial government following the killing of three European planters in Sungai Siput, Perak on June 16, 1948.

Court battles

On Sept 4, 2012, the court upheld the British government’s decision not to hold a public hearing into the killing but ruled that the British government should always remain responsible towards the unlawful killings in Batang Kali.

On March 20, 2014, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the British government was and remained legally responsible for the massacre, and the decision was upheld by the Supreme Court a year later.

However, the court dismissed an application for a public inquiry to be held.

Subsequent legal challenges were unsuccessful, with the European Court of Human Rights ruling in 2018 that it had no jurisdiction over the case.