News this week included: Singaporean property analysts worry that war in the Middle East might lead to higher home loan interest rates; ST article on Asian sailors on oil tankers, now stranded or missing in the Persian Gulf; parents raise S$2.4m in 10 days to fund gene therapy for baby with spinal muscular atrophy (and here’s a 2023 Jom profile of an adult with it); a 47-year-old Indonesian citizen, born in Singapore, convicted of failing to report for NS; two CNA explainers on Asia’s energy transition and its environmental and social impacts, relating to nickel mining in Indonesia and copper mining in the Philippines; ST explainer on the work ahead for Singapore’s new space agency; investigations by CNA and ST into the rise of beauty and massage shops in the heartland; the government blocked screenings between February and May of “Al Awda”, a documentary by director Jason Soo about the eponymous boat carrying activists towards Gaza; and tributes to the late Eddie Kuo, including one from academic Cherian George.
Below are the issues we explore in depth.
Politics: The chill—enemies within
After Lawrence Wong’s stunning success in his first general election (GE) as prime minister last year, analysts wondered whether his mandate would inspire socio-political liberalisation by the PAP, in the belief that its position is unassailable—or a persistence with autocratic methods, perhaps feeling vindicated by their outcomes. “The temptation of power is a great one,” said academic Ian Chong in an AcademiaSG webinar the next morning. “...there’ll be a lot of temptation to come down in ways that are hard on civil society and also on the opposition parties.”
Events of the past month lend credence to Chong’s fears, and suggest that the party’s arch conservatives remain as powerful as ever. The controversial Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA, or Singapore’s fake news law), so conspicuous by its absence during GE2025, has reared its head several times recently. Last month, Jay Ish'haq Rajoo, a popular TikTokker, received the first criminal charge under POFMA since it became law in 2019, for allegedly communicating false statements of fact. (Alongside separate charges of defamation and promoting feelings of ill will between different racial groups.)
And this week The Online Citizen (TOC) received a POFMA correction direction in response to an article about the reappointment of Lucien Wong as attorney-general. It was technically issued to Terry Xu, editor, and Miao Yi Infotech, a Taiwan-based firm that publishes TOC. (Terry moved to Taiwan in 2022, a year after IMDA suspended TOC’s licence.) Citing TOC’s alleged “persistent falsehoods”, the government, for the first time in POFMA’s history, directed an outlet (TOC) to publish a correction notice in a specified newspaper (The Straits Times), which is provided for under section 11(3)(b) of the act. TOC called it “the most escalated use of POFMA since it came into force”, saying, “We comply with the direction because the law requires it. We do not comply because we accept the government's characterisation of our reporting.” Whatever the legalities and merits of the government’s case, one might bemoan the financial injustice: a strapped indie media outlet forced to buy ad space in a taxpayer-funded behemoth. (TOC is crowdfunding.)
Yesterday, the government issued yet another POFMA correction direction to Xu and Miao Yi Infotech for a TOC article on Singaporeans allegedly serving in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). It said it’s the 25th given to Xu and affiliated publications, including Heidoh, an AI-driven news platform. “The public is encouraged to be discerning when engaging with information published on TOC’s and Heidoh’s platforms,” said the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). Indeed. The discerning reader should assess both the government’s argument, and that of the accused.
Some further reading: in “POFMA fail: the end of our journey”, Jom analysed our alleged falsehoods in 2023, and the potentially harmful effects of POFMA on journalism here.
Politics: The chill—enemies without
The most worrying recent incident concerns the apparent weaponisation of immigration. Fadiah Nadwa Fikri, a Malaysian human rights lawyer, this week said on X that she’d just been denied entry to Singapore. In 2020, Fadiah left legal practice to pursue her PhD at NUS. Last September, she defended her thesis, “Subverting The British Racialising Project: The Construction Of Malayness Under The 1947 People's Constitutional Proposals For Malaya”, and in January NUS conferred her a doctoral degree. During her time there, she received two graduate teaching awards and shared her work at academic institutions both in South-east Asia and outside.
