Singapore: Authorities ban expression on Israel-Palestine conflict and use POFMA law to harass critics, block site

Singapore is rated as ‘repressed’ by the CIVICUS Monitor. There are ongoing concerns about the use of restrictive laws as well as the harassment of human rights defenders. The 2019 Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA) has been used to target critics and block websites, while there are ongoing restrictions on peaceful assembly under the 2009 Public Order Act (POA).

On 14th September 2023, Tharman Shanmugaratnam was sworn in as Singapore's ninth President, two weeks after his election victory. The role of president is largely ceremonial. On 5th November, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced he will hand over the leadership of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) to Deputy Prime Minister Lawrence Wong in November 2024.

In recent months, the government has banned any public expression and gathering related to the conflict in Israel-Palestine continued to use the restrictive POFMA law to target an opposition politician, news portals and block an academic website. It also jailed a human rights lawyer for contempt and dropped an academic from a panel. A rapper was jailed for his peaceful expression, while a British national was accused of foreign interference for supporting independent media.

Expression

Those displaying symbols linked to Israel-Palestine conflict could face jail

The Singapore government uses overly restrictive criminal laws and civil defamation suits to harass and prosecute critical voices. These restrictions have recently extended to the ongoing conflict in Gaza.

On 15th November 2023, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said that travellers at Singapore's checkpoints were advised against the public display and wearing of items related to the Israel-Palestine conflict.

The Ministry of Home Affairs had earlier said that "unless expressly exempted, the public display of foreign national emblems without a permit is an offence under the Foreign National/Emblems (Control of Display) Act 1949".

The ministry added that: “In particular, promoting or supporting terrorism through the display of apparel or paraphernalia that carries logos of terrorist or militant groups, such as Hamas or its military wing Al-Qassam Brigades, will not be condoned.”

The authorities said it wouldl take firm action against those who refuse to comply, including denying their entry into Singapore. The offence is punishable with a jail term of up to six months, a fine of up to S$500 (USD 370) or both.

POFMA law used to harass critics, block academic website

The Protection against Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), as previously documented, is a sweeping piece of legislation which permits a single government minister to declare that information posted online is “false” and to order the content’s “correction” or removal if deemed to be in the public interest.

Human rights groups have highlighted how the Act contains vague and overbroad provisions; offers unfettered discretion to ministers and government authorities in making decisions; and lacks protection for freedom of expression and opinion, and access to information. It has been used against opposition politicians, civil society and the media.

Opposition politician Kenneth Jeyaretnam has received at least three POFMA ‘correction direction’ orders since August 2023 for his online comments. Jeyaretnam was issued a POFMA order on 22nd August 2023 concerning social media posts about the arrest of ten foreign nationals in an islandwide anti-money laundering operation, the corruption probe into Transport Minister S. Iswaran and Ong Beng Seng, and the Ridout Road property rentals by Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam and Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan.

On 30th August 2023, the second Minister for Law instructed that a correction direction be issued to Jeyaretnam under the POFMA due to an article he posted on The Ricebowl Singapore (TRS) website, as well as posts on Facebook, X and LinkedIn about the National Day Rally package disbursements, manpower statistics and the Ridout Road rentals, among other issues. On 22nd October, another correction direction was issued around his blog article on the country’s reserves, the Ridout Road rentals, housing prices and healthcare expenditure.

On 16th September 2023, Singapore Internet service providers were ordered to block access for end-users in Singapore to the Australia-based academic website East Asia Forum, after it failed to comply with a correction direction by the POFMA Office from 13th September over an August 2023 article by Dr Chan Ying-Kit from the National University of Singapore titled "A spate of scandals strikes Singapore". The article criticised the lack of independence of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's approach in addressing extramarital affairs among parliamentarians. On 22nd September 2023, Singapore unblocked the website after a public apology was made by the writer.

Previously, in June 2023, Singapore moved to block online publication Asia Sentinel for failing to comply with a POFMA order to carry a correction notice. As of today, the publication remains blocked in Singapore.

On 16th October 2023, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) instructed the POFMA Office to issue correction directions to three independent news websites, Singapore Eye, Gutzy Asia and The Online Citizen Asia, over articles and social media posts made on 12th and 13th October 2023. The case stemmed from articles and posts on the the news websites on the case of a woman who fell to her death in Yishun on 12th October 2023. The websites claimed that the deceased was a Filipino migrant domestic worker, when the deceased was Singaporean. One of the websites, Gutzy Asia, also claimed that there was an urgent need for oversight and reforms to ensure the safety and well-being of domestic workers in Singapore. The government has denied they failed to monitor the welfare of migrant domestic workers.

Human rights defender and lawyer sentenced to 21 days' jail

On 8th November 2023, human rights defender and lawyer M. Ravi was sentenced to 21 days’ imprisonment for contempt of court. The alleged acts were before two different judges in separate courtroom incidents in November 2021 where he accused Justice Audrey Lim and District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt of being “biased”.

This is just the latest attempt to harass and silence the lawyer. As previously documented, in March 2023, The Court of Three Judges handed Ravi a five-year suspension under s83(1)(b) of the Legal Profession Act 1986, the maximum sanction possible for lawyers' misconduct. This was for making "grave and baseless accusations of improper conduct" against the Attorney-General, officers from the Attorney-General's Chambers and the Law Society. In June 2022, the High Court ordered him and his supervising solicitor Cheng Kim Kuan to pay the Attorney-General SGD 20,000 (USD 14,500) in costs for a failed application on behalf of 17 death-row inmates who alleged that, as ethnic minorities, they were more likely to be investigated, prosecuted and sentenced for drug offences.

A prominent human rights lawyer who is known internationally for representing death-row inmates in Singapore, M Ravi has spent the better part of his 20-year career advocating for human rights and access to justice. On 2nd November he received the 2023 International Bar Association (IBA) Award for Outstanding Contribution by a Legal Practitioner to Human Rights.

Academic dropped from panel

A Philippines academic invited to speak on a panel on ‘Public Intellectuals, Populism and Power’ at a conference at the National University of Singapore (NUS) in early 2023 said she has been dropped from the upcoming panel and has accused the university of undermining academic freedom by uninviting her.

According to University World News, Sol Iglesias, assistant professor of political science at the University of the Philippines, who is also a core member of the Network in Defense of Historical Truth and Academic Freedom in the Philippines, said she had been invited to the conference in Singapore, hosted by NUS, and was listed as one of the speakers. However, she said she was informed in November 2023 by the panel’s convener that he had been told to drop her.

In a statement issued on 11th November, Sol Iglesias said: “Based on what I have been told, I understand that it is because I am married to Dr Thum Ping Tjin, a Singaporean historian and democracy activist whose work and integrity had been previously viciously attacked by the Singaporean government.”

Thum, a prominent critic of the Singapore government, now based at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, has faced systematic harassment from the authorities. He came under attack in 2018 while invited to deliver an expert opinion to a Singaporean parliamentary committee hearing on ‘fake news’, as a bill was being prepared at the time. As previously documented, he faced a smear campaign with other activists after meeting a former Malaysian prime minister in 2018 and was also investigated in 2020 and 2021 around reporting undertaken by independent online media outlet New Naratif, that he founded.

Rapper sentenced to prison for his expression

On 5th September 2023, rapper Subhas Nair was sentenced to six weeks’ imprisonment for his peaceful expression. He was accused of attempting to “promote ill will” between different racial groups in comments made on social media and in a video.

Nair was convicted Under Section 298(a) of the Penal Code in July 2023 on four such charges over incidents that occurred between July 2019 and March 2021 and intends to appeal both his conviction and sentence.

As previously documented, Nair said that he was not trying to create enmity between groups. Instead, he was trying to call out racism and convey a message about the state of journalism in Singapore, specifically media bias and how certain people and cases were reported.

Section 298(a) of the Penal Code effectively criminalises speech that may offend others or be viewed as insulting to their religion. Laws that prohibit “outraging religious feelings” were specifically cited by the former UN special rapporteur on the right to freedom of expression, Frank La Rue, as an example of overly broad laws that can be abused to censor discussion on matters of legitimate public interest.

British national accused of interference in domestic politics for comments on independent media

On 8th September 2023, the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) issued a warning to a British national, Dominic Ziegler, bureau chief of the UK-based Economist weekly newspaper, of ‘interfering in local politics’ for his comments on Singapore and the role of independent media.

Ziegler participated in an unpaid ad campaign for Jom, a weekly digital magazine that reports on local politics and culture. In a post published in August 2023 by Jom, Ziegler said the magazine "touches deeper truths about the way Singapore is run and about the culture that runs through all Singaporeans than you will ever find in the state-supported press". He wrote in the endorsement that "in illiberal states around the world independent media need supporters".

By comparing Singapore to an authoritarian regime and urging Singaporeans to embrace an alternative vision, the Singapore communications ministry claimed that “Ziegler has exploited his status in Singapore as a journalist in a prestigious international publication to advocate to Singaporeans for his viewpoint on domestic politics in Singapore, a country which he is not a citizen of.”

Peaceful Assembly

Authorities ban public assemblies related to Israel-Palestine conflict

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the National Parks Board (NPB) announced on 18th October 2023, that events and public assemblies related to the Israel-Palestine conflict will not be permitted, citing ‘safety and security reasons’. No details were provided on what the exact concerns were that required such as ban.

The authorities also said that they had received applications to use the Speakers’ Corner for events related to the Israel-Palestine conflict and that applications to hold such events would be turned down. On 6th November 2023, the government had rejected five applications to use the Speakers' Corner for events related to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On 21st October 2023, Singapore police said they were investigating activist Gilbert Goh for holding up a sign related to the conflict, while standing outside Speakers' Corner at Hong Lim Park. On 19th October, Goh posted on Instagram a black-and-white photo of himself with a handwritten placard that read: "Peace not war. Israel stop the killing at Gaza! Hamas release all the hostages!". On 9th November, Goh was summoned to the police station at Cantonment for questioning as part of an ongoing investigation under the Public Order Act. He has also been directed to refrain from accessing his Instagram account.

Singapore laws on holding protests are extremely restrictive. The 2009 Public Order Act (POA) requires a police permit for any gathering or meeting of one or more people intending to demonstrate for or against a group or government, publicise a cause or campaign, or mark or commemorate any event. The only outdoor venue in which an assembly may be held without a police permit is Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park. The law covers not only outdoor gatherings, but also those held indoors if they are in a place open to the public, or if the public is invited.

Under the POA, the commissioner of police may refuse to grant a permit if he has “reasonable ground” for suspecting that the proposed assembly or procession creates a public nuisance, gives rise to an obstruction in any public road, places the safety of any person in jeopardy, or causes feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will, or hostility between different groups in Singapore, among other grounds. Such provisions are overly broad and inconsistent with international human rights law.

Families demand that Singapore stop executions

On 9th October 2023, the eve of World Day Against the Death Penalty, five families of previous and current death row prisoners gathered to hand over a petition with more than 1,700 signatures to the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs, calling for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty pending an independent and transparent review. However according to We, The Citizens, the families were not allowed into the building and ended up having to hand over the petition to the security officers at the gate.

The statement, which was read to the media, claimed that sixteen individuals have been executed by the Singaporean government since March 2022 as part of a ‘bloody, pointless war on drugs’. The use of the death penalty as punishment for drug offences has been defended by the authorities as a crucial deterrent for traffickers. Campaigners disagree, arguing that executing prisoners for drug offences does little to deal with the wider issues feeding the illegal drug trade.

Activists believe there are currently about 50 prisoners on death row in Singapore, with all but three of them jailed for drug-related offences.

Rally on climate concerns

On 23rd September 2023, civil society groups gathered at the Speakers’ Corner in Hong Lim Park, the only place where gatherings can be held in Singapore, for SG Climate Rally to “raise awareness on effects of climate change and call for measures to reduce emissions and establish robust support for populations made most vulnerable to climate change.”

The event, organised by a group of local students and climate-concerned professionals, was attended by over 1,400 people and titled "Seas Are Rising, So Are We". Speakers at the rally stressed the need for disadvantaged people to be heard when policies are implemented because they bear the harmful effects of climate change more heavily than other groups.

The event took place nearly four years after the organisation's first event, which drew more than 2,000 guests and was preceded by several online awareness campaigns, as well as an online rally in 2021, as during COVID-19 people were not allowed to gather.