TR EMERITUS

The arrest of a YOG critic Mr Abdul Malik by the Singapore police ostensibly on the charge of "inciting violence and public disorder" with a comment posted on the "I hate YOG" Facebook has sent shockwaves throughout blogosphere. Outraged by the mass food poisoning outbreak involving 26 YOG volunteers on 15 August 2010, Mr Malik launched a verbal tirade against the minister in charge of the YOG Dr Vivian Balakrishnan and confronted another PAP MP Mr Zaqy Mohamad over the scandal. According to The New Paper, Mr Malik posted a comment written in capital letters saying that the incident showed it was time to “burn the sports minister and the PAP." In the same posting, he also called on the public to “rally together to vote the PAP out. [Source: Agence France-Presse, 25 August 2010] Three plain-clothes police officers went to Mr Abdul Malik's workplace at Bukit Merah yesterday morning to arrest him and to seize his laptop. A few more may be involved in the "background" preparation leading to the arrest of Mr Abdul Malik who has clarified that he used the term as a metaphor and he never had the intention to threaten Dr Vivian in anyway. The Commander of Bedok Police Station is DAC Teo Chun Ching and its Head Investigator is DSP Goh Tat Boon. Is it really necessary to spend precious public resources on this case? Don't the police have better things to do such as chasing after loansharks and the freelance prostitutes who are invading the HDB estates? Now, the police will not launch an official investigation into the case unless somebody lodged a formal police report. Even so, the police report must be lodged by the person whose name was mentioned in the comment under investigation. In other words, outsiders not privy to the case will be unable to lodge a police report against Mr Abdul Malik for his remark about Dr Vivian. For example, if somebody were to inform the police about this comment posted by Abdul Malik on Facebook, he/she would be treated as an informant and not as a complainant and as such, no investigations will be launched. Such cases will almost never warrant a police investigation in the first place. We have read so many media reports of people being punched in the streets and the police arriving only hours later (if at all) to inform the victims to lodge a complaint to the Magistrate before it can take any action. So the question is: Did Dr Vivian lodge the police report and if so, what are his grounds for doing so? As we can see from previous examples, the Singapore police is especially efficient when the case involves a PAP MP or minister. In March 2010, a 52 year cabby was arrested a day after reminding his PAP MP Lee Yi-Shyan during a meet-the-people session of the Seng Han Thong incident. He was subsequently fined $2,000 for "criminal intimidation". A year earlier, a 17 year old boy who is intellectually challenged was arrested by the police on the same day after he allegedly kicked the door after meeting his PAP MP Lim Hwee Hua. Another man was arrested two days after he called up REACH hotline threatening to beat a PAP MP whose name was not even mentioned. He was later jailed for six months. It is interesting to note that the police has classified this case under "inciting violence and public disorder" instead of "criminal intimidation". This is because the comment was not sent to or even directed at Dr Vivian Balakrishnan himself and so there is no way he can be "intimidated." Section 267C cap.224 of the Penal Code states: Making, printing, etc., document containing incitement to violence, etc. Whoever — (a) makes, prints, possesses, posts, distributes or has under his control any document; or (b) makes or communicates any electronic record, containing any incitement to violence or counselling disobedience to the law or to any lawful order of a public servant or likely to lead to any breach of the peace shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to 5 years, or with fine, or with both. Mr Malik did not incite Singaporeans to violence or to protest against the government. How can one "burn" the PAP even if his comment is interpreted strictly to the words? If this is the case, then shouldn't YPAP leader Sinha Shekhar be investigated by the police to for calling Singaporeans "DOGS"? Aren't his inflammatory words more likely to "incite public disorder"? It remains to be seen how the Attorney-General Chambers is going to prosecute him in court, if ever. In the meantime, Dr Vivian should step forth and clarify to the public if he was the one who made the police report. Surely as an eye surgeon, he should be intelligent enough to realize that Mr Malik was using a metaphor and did not mean what he wrote literally? As the minister for youth, Dr Vivian appeared to be out of touch with the concerns and aspirations of young Singaporeans. Netizens are warned to be extra vigilant when commenting about Dr Vivian lest you forget his infamous quote last year: "Anonymity in cyberspace is an illusion.....if need be, we can identify you, and if we have to, we will be prepared to prosecute you." [Source: 21st Feb 2009, Channel News Asia] Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us  Read More →

Agence France-Presse, 25 August 2010 A Singaporean man who attacked the ruling party on Facebook and urge people to "burn" a cabinet minister has been arrested on charges of inciting violence, police said Wednesday. In a statement, police said they had arrested a "man in his late 20s" on Tuesday "in connection with investigations into offences related to incitement of violence". The statement did not name the man or give details of the offence, but said that he was released on bail pending further investigation. Local media identified him as Abdul Malik Ghazali, 27, who posted a series of comments on the social networking site critical of how Singapore is hosting the inaugural Youth Olympic Games (YOG). The August 14-26 event, held for competitors aged from 14 to 18, has generated limited public interest, with many events blighted by empty seats and the host country's athletes faring badly. Vivian Balakrishnan, the minister for community development, youth and sports, has come under particular fire from online critics over the games. Abdul Malik's postings on his own Facebook page and on a separate group account called "I hate the Youth Olympic Games Organising Committee" are also critical of Singapore's ruling People's Action Party (PAP). Abdul Malik, who works for a company specialising in wood and flooring, said on his Facebook page that he was arrested "due to my involvement in anti-YOG and anti-PAP Facebook pages". One of his postings highlighted recent floods in Singapore, the escape of detained terror suspect Mas Selamat Kastari, the amount of money spent to host the games and reports of the poor standard of food served for games volunteers. He said it was time to "burn" the sports minister and the PAP. "Rally together and vote them out!!!" he wrote. Abdul Malik said in comments published Wednesday by The New Paper that "the comment is a metaphor". "I did not intend for it to be taken literally. I did not mean for someone to actually burn," he said. --AFP  Read More →

It was recently reported on the 21st August 2010 that jobless numbers are on the rise again and close to 68,100 Singaporeans are unemployed. In reference to http://www.ahp.mohh.com.sg/index.html MOH Holdings (formerly known as Health Corporation of Singapore) provides training and employment services to Singapore's governmental healthcare, such as polyclinics and hospitals. If we take a look at their webpage, it is cleary seen they are trying to attract foreigners to work in our heatlhcare sector. And they will be heading to Australia, Ireland, UK and Taipei to look for more foreign 'talents'. Why are they not reaching out to the 68,100 unemployed Singaporeans? Surely a small percentage, if not all, would be willing to work in the healthcare industry. I do not deny that some of the jobs in healthcare, most Singaporeans would not want to do it as it is considered dirty. But if we take a closer look, some of the jobs offered are Speech/Occupational Therapists, Prosthetics & Orthotists, Physiotherapists and Healthcare Administrators. Is MOH Holdings trying to tell us out of those 68,100 unemployed, not even 1%  are good enough for such jobs? Even on their website banner, they are proud to display testimonials from foreigners who got the jobs in Singapore through MOH Holdings. Do we really need such organisations that blatantly and openly ignore Singaporeans to import foreigners? Why do our own Governement-run stat boards and ministries turn a blind-eye to such an act? Other examples: http://worksingapore.com/ - a site run by Jobsfactory and Jobcentral, which are WDA approved Job Directories. http://www.mom.gov.sg/foreign-manpower/working-in-singapore/Pages/default.aspx - our own Ministry of Manpower touting Singapore to Foreigners, even when our Prime Minister has promised to 'slow down' the number of foreign workers. It is quite unfortunate that the sacrifices of born and bred Singaporeans, continued to be ignored in favour of foreigners in the name of GDP growth and the current ruling party's ridiculous fat salaries and bonuses.     - A Singaporean Patriot  Read More →