Reform Party condemns the heavy-handed arrest by the police of 15 individuals on 5 November. From press reports published on 12 November they appear to be have been doing little more than wearing red or black. A few of them were wearing Guy Fawkes masks. 12 of them were arrested at City Hall MRT while three were stopped along Orchard Road.
While there were demonstrations in many cities around the globe to mark the Million Mask Day, Singapore seems to have been the only one where the authorities were sufficiently paranoid to have objected to people’s choice of clothes. All of those arrested were young. According to the reports they are being investigated for possible offences of organizing and taking part in a public assembly without a permit.The heavy-handed police response was altogether unnecessary. There is no suggestion that the individuals were a threat to public order or had any connection to the hackings.
The right to peaceful assembly and protest is enshrined in Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights and Article 1 of the US Constitution. Many Asian countries, such as Hong Kong, Taiwan, and India also have constitutional protection of the right to peaceful assembly. In Hong Kong it is inconceivable that the police could restrict the right to peaceful protests. Attendance at events organized to protect fundamental freedoms or mark the Tiananmen massacre regularly run into the hundreds of thousands. Singapore is also considerably more repressive in this regard than many of the other members of ASEAN including Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia and even Burma.
Having a small space in Hong Lim Park is a poor substitute for the removal of our right to peaceful protest everywhere else. Reform Party would amend our Public Order Act to enshrine the right to peaceful assembly subject to reasonable conditions in the interests of public order. These conditions must not be tantamount to an outright ban on such activities. Marches or processions should inevitably require more stringent conditions, though banning them should be a last resort.
The PAP government inevitably justifies severe restrictions on our fundamental freedoms by saying that Singapore is too small and vulnerable or too riven by communal, racial and religious divisions. It is time for Singaporeans to stand up to these unnecessary restrictions. The economy is not going to be damaged or foreign investment leave Singapore just because of a few people exercising their democratic right to protest, provided this is done in a peaceful and non-disruptive manner. The arguments for these restrictions look increasingly weak when not only do the citizens of advanced democracies, like the US and Europe enjoy greater freedom than us but so do the citizens of many of our ASEAN neighbours.
Kenneth Jeyaretnam
Secretary General