By Leong Sze Hian / Image – publicity image of the Protest event
When Han Hui Hui and Roy Ngerng first announced in May that they would be organizing a “CPF” protest on 7 June, 4 pm to 7 pm, at Speakers’ Corner – The original crowd size that they were planning for was only about 250 people – just like their previous protest in May at Speakers’ Corner on “Jobs and wages”.
In fact, they had announced on their blogs that the $500 plus excess money from the previous events, would be sufficient to cover the costs of the “CPF” protest.
They too had invited all the political parties and some Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to send speakers to speak at the protest.
And then “all hell broke loose” – when Roy Ngerng was served a letter of demand which eventually lead to Roy being sued for defamation.
Roy’s lawyers advised Roy to not be a joint organiser of the protest anymore. So, the burden of being the sole organiser fell onto the lap of a 33 kilo 22 year old girl, Han Hui Hui.
The phone, messages, emails, postings, meetings, etc, poured in like a flood practically everyday.
The original 4 speakers ballooned to 9. Many others wanted to speak, tell jokes, etc on the event.
It was becoming an unplanned, uncoordinated spontaneous “tsunami” – Bus stops were vandalised (a 71 year old man was arrested), people were printing flyers on their own and distributing them (one gentleman posted on the internet that he printed 4,000 flyers), a man distributing flyers outside Parliament and subsequently arrested for reasons unknown, posters pasted all over Singapore (Mr Tan Kin Lian received a call asking him about why the posters were pasted all over – to which he replied that he was only one of the speakers, not the organiser), etc.
Actually, even the organiser of the protest event, Han Hui Hui didn’t know that people were printing and pasting posters all over Singapore.
Just 3 days before the day of protest – ‘All hell “really” broke loose’
A person (who wish to be anonymous ) decided to sponsor the stage after knowing that no stage was catered for. After securing a company to put up the stage for the event, they decided to call to cancel the booking with Han Hui Hui. The reason they gave through phone was that they would have no business for the national day celebrations if they erected the stage for the protest (2 months from now!). However it is fortunate that eventually, Han Hui Hui manage to find one company which dared to take up the task of helping to set up a stage for the event.
Even the printers say that they dare not print for the event.
Roy received a call from the police that he would need to apply for a House to House and Street Collections Licence if donation boxes were to be set up during the protest. He relayed this information to Han Hui Hui as he is not part of the organizers. (see more here)
In this regard, Han Hui Hui asked how she is going to recover the estimated $2,000 that she has to pay upfront first for the sound system, etc – since donation boxes will not be allowed?
Does it mean that she may only be able to have people donate to the event via internet banking or ATM to the designated bank account?
History is in the making – an unprecedented $88,000 has come in to the Roy Ngerng legal defense fund in a week – and you never know – with so many people posting all over the internet that they would come to do so many things (people have made their own protest t-shirts, posters, placards, banners, umbrellas, songs, poems, etc) – the way that things have been happening – you may never know what to expect on 7 June.
So do come down to speakers corner on 7 June, 4 pm to 7 pm, with your family and friends to be part of history!
