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As the State of Emer­gency (SoE) comes to an end on Jan­u­ary 31, sev­er­al de­tainees who have been held for months un­der de­ten­tion or­ders with­out charge are anx­ious­ly await­ing their free­dom.

For 89 fam­i­lies, the ex­piry of the SoE will mean ei­ther re­lease or for­mal charges.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, the wife of a de­tainee, said she re­mains alarmed that her hus­band has been in­car­cer­at­ed for sev­er­al months with­out fac­ing a sin­gle charge. She said he was de­tained af­ter as­sist­ing some­one of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter and that the pro­longed un­cer­tain­ty has tak­en a heavy toll on the fam­i­ly. Ac­cord­ing to her, once the SoE ex­pires, her hus­band will fi­nal­ly learn whether he will be charged or re­leased. His at­tor­ney has ad­vised that if charges are laid, he would be el­i­gi­ble for bail as a first-time of­fend­er.