By Teo Soh Lung
It is exactly 100 days since I went to the Cantonment Police Headquarters to be interviewed on four offences allegedly committed on Cooling Off Day, a day when all political parties are supposedly forbidden to advertise themselves.
I gave a full statement admitting that I posted the four articles and confirmed that I was the only person managing my facebook account. Despite these admissions, I was escorted in a police car by four plain clothes police officers to my home. There I met another four police officers from the forensic department.
The police took away one CPU and one Fujitsu notebook which despite my protest that I did not use it for any facebook postings or viewing. They also took away my $800 Samsung Galaxy 6 mobile phone.
This video records what happened on 31 May 2016, a date which I will probably remember for the rest of my life.
Cooling Off Day offences may be trivial in nature. But the reality is exceedingly severe. They are “arrestable” offences. Indeed, the majority of offences that are created in recent times are all “arrestable”. The police are free to seize properties without warrants i.e. without the authorisation of our courts. They are free to seize anything and everything because they know that they are immune from prosecution as they themselves are the prosecutors and our laws allow them to do so. Our parliament in legislating “arrestable” offences have allowed the police to take the role of judges by giving them the power to decide the properties they wish to seize, whether relevant and irrelevant to the offences they are investigating. They have the power to invade the privacy of every person with immunity.
We know that in today’s context, the computer and mobile phone contain our life and work. I am very sure that the police in seizing my computers and mobile phone have cloned and investigated all information in the devices. They have invaded my privacy and obtained all information regarding my work and life.
Today is the 100th day of the seizure of my two computers and Galaxy 6 mobile phone. Samsung Galaxy 7 will soon be available and my mobile phone will be outdated. In the Chinese tradition, the period of mourning is 100 days. The dead have gone to another realm and the living must carry on life. I suppose it is time to move on. Singapore is a police state. I have not been charged in court but my properties have already been confiscated. They have been confiscated without the sanction of our courts.
