The Workers’ Party issued a statement on Wednesday to express its concern about the manner of how the investigations into the alleged violations of the Parliamentary Election Act is being reportedly conducted.
The party notes that other individuals or entities who have been reported for similar violations were not known to have faced the same treatment and urge the authorities to ensure that consistency and proportionality are applied to all investigations so as to maintain confidence in the Singapore justice system.
On Tuesday, TOC reported on how Roy Ngerng Yiling and Teo Soh Lung were being extensively investigated for their alleged offence for posting posts on their Facebook account during the recent Bukit Batok By-election Cooling Off Day. (read here)
The Election Department had earlier filed police reports against the two individuals for their alleged offence. (read here)
Instead of being released after their 2-hr interview at Cantonment Police Station today at 10am, the police escorted the two back to their respective home to conduct their search on the premises.
The two had their house searched over 2.5 hours by the police without a search warrant after a 2 hr interview at Cantonment police station this morning.
The police seized one desktop, one laptop and mobile phone from Teo; two laptops, two harddisks, memory cards and one mobile phone from Ngerng.
Ngerng was further interviewed by the police and was released at about 6pm.
Statement by Workers’ Party in full
The Workers’ Party is concerned about the manner in which the current investigations into alleged violations of “Cooling Off Day” regulations are reportedly being conducted.
We understand from the public record that other individuals or entities who were reported for similar violations in the past were not known to have faced the same lengthy interviews, and searches and seizures of personal equipment.
We urge the authorities to ensure that consistency and proportionality are applied to all investigations, as these are key to maintaining confidence in Singapore’s law enforcement organisations and legal system.
