The “foreign interference” narrative is “a time tested tactic” allegedly utilised by the PAP government as a prelude to clamping down on political dissent in Singapore, said civil rights group Function 8 on Thu (26 Sep).
Director Teo Soh Lung, in a Facebook post today, cited how allegations of foreign interference was “used in a massive and destructive way” in the early-1960s during Operation Coldstore on 2 Feb 1963, in which she said that over “133 leaders of the opposition and critics of the PAP were arrested and detained without trial under the ISA”.
Contrary to a government-endorsed account of the event stating that opposition leader Lim Chin Siong supported the anti-colonial uprising in Brunei – which was spearheaded by the country’s opposition leader A. M. Azahari – in Dec 1962, Teo said: “According to Dr Lim Hock Siew, the opposition parties in Singapore did not give any material or financial support to Azahari except to issue a solidarity statement when the so called revolt took place.”
HistorySG, a Singapore government online resource guide, suggested that the meeting between Lim and Azahari “sowed the conviction that the Barisan Sosialis was not averse to political violence” and that the left-wing opposition party was “ready to depart from constitutional methods”, and to “jeopardise national defence and Singapore’s security by joining with groups resorting to violence and bloodshed as in the Borneo Territories”.
“In those days, even the PAP issued statements supporting opposition leaders outside Singapore,” Teo noted.
The article on the HistorySG website also claimed that the “Special Branch mounted Operation Coldstore to “safeguard against any attempt by the Communists to mount violence or disorder in the closing stages of the establishment of the Federation of Malaysia”, and to ensure that Singapore’s merger with Malaysia will take place in “a more secure and sound state”.
Lim, alongside S. Woodhull, Fong Swee Suan and Dominic Puthucheary, had also allegedly “done their utmost to sabotage the formation of Malaysia” as “key leaders of the left-wing Barisan Sosialis and its associated pro-communist organisations”, according to the article.
Teo added that the arrest of 22 people – including herself and Tan Wah Piow, a lawyer and Singaporean political exile living in London – during Operation Spectrum in 1987 also illustrated the government’s alleged stoking of fears of “foreign interference” as “an excuse to arrest” political dissidents.
“Tan is not a foreigner, but his inability to return to Singapore was a good enough reason to qualify him as a foreigner. Tan is the only “foreigner” living abroad who is in contact with some of the 22 alleged Marxist conspirators,” she added.
Teo also responded to Shanmugam’s comment regarding how the Government should be given the authority to collaborate with technology companies to combat allegedly “hostile information campaigns”.
“The serious impact of hostile information campaigns on the social fabric, political sovereignty, peace, stability and national security has to be met head-on by states, working with technology companies as partners,” Shanmugam told a conference on foreign-interference tactics and countermeasures at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) yesterday (25 Sep).
Shanmugam noted that France has introduced an information-manipulation law to deal with such “campaigns”, which includes imposing a “transparency obligation” on the algorithms of social media platforms and election advertising on such platforms.
Under the legislation, the French national broadcasting agency will also be given the powers to “prevent, stop or suspend” television services that are “controlled by foreign states or are influenced by these states, and which are detrimental to the country’s fundamental interests”.
Teo argued that Shanmugam “is using the same foreign interference in Singapore’s affairs as a scare tactic and an excuse to enact more laws to control TOC and New Naratif” but “is afraid of being held solely responsible for such action”.
“And so he tells us that France has already enacted such laws to control information. The French Embassy should clarify the matter.
“It is time for Singaporeans, both young and old to defend those under siege from the likes of Minister Shanmugam. We must be aware of their end game which is to destroy alternative voices and take away our fundamental rights to free speech,” the statement read.
Online news sites employing foreigners to write “almost exclusively negative articles” on Singapore sociopolitical issues seek to “fracture social cohesion”: Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam
Commenting on the issue on foreign interference in Singapore, Shanmugam said on Wed that online platforms such as The Online Citizen employs foreigners to write almost exclusively negative articles on social and political matters in Singapore, including content that seek to “fracture social cohesion”.
He said that “some news sites” have anonymous contributors, which leaves them open to being used by foreign interests to publish inflammatory articles that “attack and deepen divisions” within a country.
“They have no interest in sociopolitical stability within a country,” Shanmugam asserted. “Their only interest is in eyeballs.”
Highlighting specifically the article that is now the subject of a lawsuit between PM Lee Hsien Loong and TOC editor-in-chief Terry Xu, Shanmugam said: “I’m not commenting on the legal merits of the article, since it is the subject of a lawsuit, only that a foreigner, staying in Malaysia, writes these things for a Singapore site to target a Singapore audience.”
“Who controls her? Who pays her? What is her purpose? All these are legitimate questions. most readers would just assume this was by a genuine Singaporean contributor,” he added.
Shanmugam also questioned the origins of the administrators of TOC, saying that nine out of 14 are located outside of Singapore: “We don’t know who they are. Are they Singaporeans? Are they foreigners?”
Responding to Shanmugam’s speech, Xu maintained that nothing that is published on TOC “goes unvetted” by him, “a Singaporean who has served his national service and held responsible by the Ministry of Communication and Information as the registered person in charge”.
“If one is to observe the series of Facebook posts, and now, the Law Minister’s comments, one can easily come to a conclusion that there is a collaborated campaign to discredit TOC,” he said.
Touching on the issue of hiring foreigners to write for TOC, Xu said: “To the best of my recollection, there is no law against hiring person of foreign nationality, and TOC has not used nor received any foreign funding. So what is the Law Minister barking about?”
