News of the detention of prominent investigative journalist, Clare Rewcastle-Brown in Singapore at the Woodlands Checkpoint and the information since reported is concerning. While the detention did not last for very long, the fact that Rewcastle-Brown was even stopped is disturbing.
Why was an alert raised for her in the first place? She is instrumental in revealing the gargantuan levels of corruption perpetuated by Najib and his cronies in the 1MDB scandal. The investigation of this scandal is one that the Singapore government has publicly declared support for. Given that she is on the same side as the Singapore government and her work is concerned with events in Malaysia and not Singapore, one has to ask the question as to why she was stopped.
Was it just a mistake? Or are there outside influences to Singapore’s immigration policies?
It has also been revealed Rewcastle-Brown had to skip a fraud conference held in Singapore in 2015 after she received several warnings from Malaysian sources. She had allegedly been told that the Malaysian authorities were aware of her arrival in Singapore and had arranged to capture her. She was further warned that a Malaysian military jet had detoured to Seletar Airport to wait for her. Is this action not a breach of Singapore’ sovereignty? How can military jets land in Singapore to arrest someone in Singapore unilaterally?
Did the authorities approve of this move? Could Malaysian forces come onto Singaporean territory without Singaporean authorities being made aware? Or, did the Singaporean government allow this move to support then Prime Minister Najib? This information has raised more questions than answers and given that it deals with issues of national security, it must be answered by the government of Singapore,
If the government was aware of the Malaysian military jet landing in Selatar, one has to question why it was allowed in the first place? Do we take orders on who can and cannot enter our country from Malaysia? If the government was unaware, then, there are severe breaches in our national security. The Ministry of Defense will have to be transparent on this.
Next, was the Ministry of Foreign Affairs aware of this debacle? Since when do we allow foreigners to interfere in our state policy? Isn’t this always the bogeyman that the government uses to silence critics?
Prime Lee Hsien Loong never hid his excellent relationship with Najib. This begs the question of the role Singapore may have played in ensuring that Rewcastle-Brown did not attend the said 2015 fraud conference?
Has her name remained on the checkpoint list because that list has not been updated?
Unless the government of Singapore is transparent and accountable on these many issues, speculation will continue to be rife and that is not in anyone’s interest.
