MHA: Foreign entities should not interfere in domestic issues, especially political issues or controversial social issues with political overtones

This year, three new sponsors joined to Pink Dot’s list of corporate supporters, local entertainment giant Cathay Organisation, popular social media platform Twitter, as well as global business and financial information and news leader Bloomberg.  Returning sponsors for Pink Dot includes Google,Barclays, J. P. Morgan, Goldman Sachs, BP, and The Gunnery. This marks a new record in the number of corporate brands for the event.

The organisers of the Pink Dot have held the event at the Speakers’ Corner for several years now. The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community expresses its views, on issues of concern to it, during this event.

MHA noted that the Government’s general position has always been that foreign entities should not interfere in its domestic issues, especially political issues or controversial social issues with political overtones. These are political, social or moral choices for Singaporeans to decide for ourselves.

MHA states that it will take steps to make it clear that foreign entities should not fund, support or influence such events held at the Speakers’ Corner. In the context of LGBT issues, this will apply both to events that advocate the LGBT cause such as the Pink Dot, as well as events whose purpose is to oppose the LGBT cause.

On Wednesday morning, Pink Dot SG published a Facebook post in response to MHA’s statement

Pink Dot SG started off first and foremost as a platform on which values of inclusion and diversity are celebrated, and over the years this has only strengthened with the growing support of Singaporeans from all walks of life, including a significant portion of its corporate citizens. For all the LGBT Singaporeans and their allies that this movement has striven to help give a voice to and done its part to push the envelope in helping to create greater visibility of Singapore’s LGBT community, we have done all we can to ensure Pink Dot SG stays within the law.

Our Corporate Sponsors that have supported us over the years are all registered and incorporated in Singapore. We are fortunate to count among them admired household names, employers of choice for a sizeable portion of our workforce, inextricably linked with and fully a part of this beautiful fabric we call home.