11 January 2025: Here comes the "racial harmony" bill

Last week's issue was a bit of a quiet one but this week's is packed! Please bear with me for this long(ish) one.

👋🏼 A big hello to everyone directed to this newsletter from Vietnam Weekly (thanks Mike!) Good to have you all here.

(1)

The government has introduced the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Bill in Parliament. For those of us who prefer to read the actual legislation rather than just news reports—and I strongly recommend doing this as much as you're able—you can find it here.

NOTE: All emphases in the rest of this section are mine.

Part 3, Section 8 of the bill grants the Minister for Home Affairs (currently K Shanmugam) the power to issue a "racial content restraining order" against someone as long as the Minister is "satisfied" that the person has "committed, is committing, is likely to commit or has attempted or is attempting to commit" acts that cause, or incite others to cause, "feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between different races in Singapore". An order can be in effect for a period of up to two years, but the bill also says that the "Minister, may at any time while a racial content restraining order is in effect, issue a direction to extend the duration of the order". Each extension can't exceed two years, but the Minister can extend "one or more times". Also: "Before making or extending a racial content restraining order, the Minister is not required to give any person notice of, or consult any person on, the Minister’s intention to make or extend the order."

Racial content restraining orders can do a range of things (either singly or in combination):

• Ban the target from making public speeches or writing "on any specified subject, topic or theme"
• Ban the target from communicating to the Singaporean public "any specified information or material" or "any specified description of information or material"
• Force the target to make sure that particular information or material (or description thereof) is no longer publicly available (i.e. content removal or something to that effect)
• Stop the target from "printing or editing, or assisting or contributing to, any publication or specified publication or class of publications"
• Block the target from "holding office in an editorial board or committee of any publication"

S 8(6) says that prohibitions relating to stopping someone from making public speeches or writing, distributing specified information, printing or assisting with specified publications are also contravened if someone else does the prohibited act on their behalf. If I understand this correctly, this means that, for example, if you've been slapped with a restraining order blocking you from giving speeches on a topic or theme, you can't write a speech and have a friend read it out for you. S 8(7) provides more detail on prohibitions on communicating/distributing specified information: if you are subject to this restraining order, you can't do things like give the information to an intermediary to make it publicly available or describe to the general public how they can find such information. Failure to comply with a restraining order could attract a maximum punishment of a $10,000 fine and two years' imprisonment for a first offence. For subsequent convictions, the penalty goes up to maximum of $20,000 fine and three years' imprisonment.

What sort of oversight and review is there? Those who kena can write to the Presidential Council for Racial and Religious Harmony within 14 days of receiving a restraining order, upon which the Council has to deliberate and make a recommendation to the President and the Cabinet within 44 days of the recipient getting the order. If the Cabinet agrees with the Council, the President must act accordingly; presidential discretion can only be exercised if the Cabinet and Council disagree. On his part, the Minster is required to review the restraining orders he's made at least once every 12 months as long as they're in force. Crucially, S 42 of the bill says: "All orders and decisions of the President and the Minister and recommendations of the Council made under this Act are final and are not to be called in question in any court."

There's more in the bill—especially relating to race-based offences and community remedial programmes, and an entire chunk on foreign interference—but these are the highlights that have jumped out at me. I've not seen much analysis or critique of this bill, but will circle back if I come across any or have more thoughts after going through it more thoroughly.

Related reading:

(2)

The Workplace Fairness Bill has been passed in Parliament, but the reviews are mixed. The Ministry of Manpower, of course, says it's another step towards building "fair and harmonious workplaces". But Workers Make Possible points out that the law actually excludes lots of workers, such as platform workers, those who are self-employed and those who work in companies that employ fewer than 25 (or whatever number the Minister might prescribe later) workers. SAFE, an organisation representing the loved ones of LGBTQ+ Singaporeans, issued a statement before the bill's passage objecting to the exclusion of sexual identity and gender orientation as characteristics protected under the legislation:

Past research by organisations such as NUS Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health and AWARE bears out that LGBTQ+ persons have experienced discrimination at the workplace, and such levels are generally higher than those faced by persons who do not identify as LGBTQ+.

[SAFE and its community partners are] mindful that other forms of institutionalised discrimination against LGBTQ people already exists, in public housing, education, adoption rules, advertising standards and film classification.

Pink Dot made a similar point in their 8 January press release:

In the parliamentary debate over the legislation today, several MPs from both sides of the House including Louis Ng, He Tingru, Usha Chandradas and Jean See questioned why [sexual orientation and gender identity or SOGI] was excluded as protected characteristics in the [Workplace Fairness Bill or WFL]. Manpower Minister Tan See Leng responded that the legislation had started off with the existing characteristics because the government had “enough experience” and a “treasure trove of information” on those traits. He added that more information had to be gathered to “widen the reach” of the bill. This repeated the government’s previous claims that the WFL should address only “common and familiar forms of discrimination”. 

Ironically, what is painfully “common and familiar” for many LGBTQ+ workers is the failure of the very systems that are supposed to protect them, leading to a lack of trust and severe underreporting. Alarmingly, only about 11% of LGBTQ+ individuals report their workplace discrimination to their company or authorities. Many cited fears of retaliation or doubts that their complaints would be taken seriously. For those who did report, outcomes often reinforced their fears, with research showing most SOGI-related complaints were dismissed outright.

By excluding SOGI from the WFL’s protections, the government not only ignores a significant portion of workplace discrimination but also perpetuates a culture of LGBTQ+ workers suffering in silence.

Read the bill for yourself here.

(3)

Three men were detained under the Internal Security Act in November last year, the government revealed this week. The Internal Security Department alleges that these men "separately self-radicalised online, and had made preparations to engage in armed violence overseas". Two of them apparently wanted to fight for Hamas, while the third wanted to fight against Israel with groups like Hezbollah or Iran's military.

One person was released, with restrictions, from detention that same month. The ISD says that he, too, had planned to travel to Gaza to fight against the Israel Defense Forces with Hamas.

As always with the ISA, keep in mind that we only have the ISD's word at this point and no independent reporting on or fact-checking of their allegations about the people they've detained. I can't speak for any of these men or their views, beliefs and motivations, but it's just as good a time as any to think about how Singapore has responded/is responding to the violence and war crimes being committed in Palestine. Like others elsewhere in the world, people in Singapore have been virtually bearing witness to indiscriminate killing and unbearable cruelty for over a year now. But there is very little space or opportunity to channel this horror, grief and anger into working and organising for justice—Singaporeans who do this have had events shut down, been subjected to police investigation or even criminal prosecution. Citing racial and religious harmony and public order, the government is trying to keep a tight lid on all this, but there's a cost to bottling everything up without genuine (and not top-down, heavily controlled spaces where only the government narrative is allowed to dominate) avenues for people to direct their energies. I can't say if these (according to the ISD) radicalised men would have made different choices if there were opportunities for grassroots mobilisation to protest against Israel's violence or pressure the Singapore government to do more, but there are just so many people who are feeling distressed and desperate about the situation and suppression is not the answer.

(4)

Once again, we have a reminder that politics in Singapore is petty in the most kindergarten of ways. The Progress Singapore Party and the PAP are locked in a spat in Bukit Gombak, both sides accusing each other of harassment.

It started when S Nallakaruppan, a PSP member, posted on Facebook that he and his fellow party members had been followed around by PAP supporters/members/volunteers while doing block visits in Bukit Gombak, which is (for now, anyway) part of Choa Chu Kang GRC. "Whilst we were doing our Block visits, PAP members followed us closely," he wrote. "We told them politely to do their outreach efforts at other Blocks or Units & not follow us so closely. Sadly, they said it's 'their territory' & they have a right to follow us." Another volunteer claimed that she'd been followed and photographed at close range, and has since filed a police report. The party published footage of guys sticking cameras in their faces and following them around.

Anyhow say! Low Yen Ling, Senior Minister of State for the Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and the Ministry of Trade and Industry and a Choa Chu Kang GRC Member of Parliament, responded. On her own Facebook page, she blasted the PSP for being the harassers, accusing them of taunting and insulting the PAP volunteers and even slapping one of them.

There's been plenty of reaction online. Some pointed out that the PAP has precedent: in November last year, a Choa Chu Kang resident who went to Low's Meet-the-People Session to talk about Gaza said that there were people they thought to be with the PAP who were taking photos of her and her friends without consent: “At the MPS, we noticed a few men who were not residents watching us and taking our photos... We saw [one of them] sending a photo of us to someone using whatsapp.” Ravi Philemon of Red Dot United, who was a candidate for the Singapore People’s Party in the 2015 general election, cited his experience almost 10 years ago of being followed by his PAP opponent during a walkabout. It’s also been highlighted that it’s odd that Low, the MP, wasn’t present for the PAP’s block visit—so was it or was it not an official PAP block visit? If not, then what were they doing there?

The New Paper interviewed Bukit Gombak residents, one of whom said that PAP volunteers had told her that the opposition party was "here to 'disturb'" and that she should keep her door closed to them, which she thought was "childish". Many other residents said that they'd spoken to the PSP but didn't see anyone from the PAP, while another resident had the opposite experience.

One of the PAP volunteers has come forward to share his side of the story, including some video footage that shows PSP members going right up to him and sticking their faces in his camera and trying to taunt him into taking a wefie.

Neither group looks great. I don't find it surprising: one side is a dominant party used to ruling the roost, the other an opposition party likely simmering with resentment at their opponent's yaya papaya ways. The PAP has hardly been generous or respectful of members of the opposition, often treating challengers with arrogance and contempt, like when Vivian Balakrishnan remarked in Parliament that PSP's Leong Mun Wai was "illiterate" and said his high school must have been "lousy". This is what you get when two sets of egos cross paths and run face-first into each other.

But there's also a stark power and resource differential here that I can't ignore. The cost of fucking around with the PSP is not the same as fucking around with the PAP. Perhaps, when they came up against the PAP, the PSP members didn't want to give in or appear intimidated by their bigger and more powerful rivals, and ended up over-compensating with the bravado. Not the smartest or classiest thing to do, obviously, but it's a sentiment I'm familiar with after all these years of covering opposition parties and civil society groups in Singapore—sometimes you just want to get your own back on the powerful, even if it's immature or petty. But what does the PAP get out of this behaviour? In such situations the bigger party always runs more risk of looking like the bully. And surely the PAP has more than enough power not to have to resort to this sort of toddler play.

Around the region

This is a new section amplifying the newsletters of friends who cover different parts of Asia—we're getting together to support one another more and provide our subscribers with a more holistic look at the region.

🇻🇳 In his latest Vietnam Weekly newsletter, Mike led with a new decree in Vietnam that's drastically upped the fines for traffic violations. A motorbike running a red light, for instance, could end up with a whopping US$235 fine! 🫣 (I'm curious about what enforcement is going to be like, though...)

🇮🇩 Over at Indonesia at a Crossroads, Febriana has written about the Indonesian government's controversial plans to increase VAT. That was met with strong opposition and Prabowo finally announced on 31 December 2024 that his administration is cancelling the plan.

🇰🇷 Seulki Lee, the new editor of Asia Undercovered (taking over from Nithin Coca's great work starting this newsletter in the first place), kicked things off with a special issue from her home country of South Korea. It's a really useful round-up of the tumult that's been going on since 3 December, when Yoon Suk Yeol suddenly declared emergency martial law.

🇹🇼 New Bloom in Taiwan is making some changes to their newsletter management for 2025, but it's still worth keeping their newsletter on your radar. For Taipei-based readers, they also have a list of events at their space DAYBREAK.

🇲🇾 The Malaysianist's latest issue (paywalled) examines political movements in Malaysia and asks whether the Johor–Singapore special economic zone is just political theatre.

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