The 40 year-old Singaporean woman who was not wearing a mask and allegedly assaulted a 47-year-old woman at Shunfu Market has been arrested and will be charged in court on Tuesday (5 May).
According to the Singapore Police Force (SPF), the police arrested the woman that had assaulted a member of the public, caused public nuisance, and was not wearing a mask on 4 May at about 9.10 pm.
It is said that the woman will be charged in court on Tuesday.
The police also urged everyone to take the circuit breaker measures seriously while noting that they will not tolerate “such blatant disregard of the law and wilful breaches of safe distancing measures”.
Following this, Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam on Monday (4 May) wrote on his Facebook saying that he is aware of the recent viral video of a lady who refused to wear a mask and obey instructions from officers and claiming that she is “Sovereign”.
He stated that the woman is currently being investigated for that incident as well as a prior incident where she was also reluctant to wear a mask in a market.
Noting that he had checked up what she might have meant by referring to “Sovereign”, Mr Shanmugam explained, “There is a movement in the US, and adherents to that movement, (broadly speaking) reject Government, reject the police and any kind of authority.”
He continued, “Well and good. But then such people should not live within society – she should not expect any of the benefits that come from this system of governance, including her security, medical care, other benefits.”
“If she doesn’t follow the rules and (say) ends up infecting someone – why should society accept that? Or if she falls ill herself, she will be imposing a medical burden on the rest of the society – whose rules she rejects, presumably,” he added.
He also described that it is “very odd”, asserting that usually “there will be more to it than meets the eye” in such cases.
The incident of the woman was caught on video and it had been circulating on social media on Sunday (3 May). In the footage, the Singaporean woman was seen in public without a face mask and she was also in a heated exchange with a man. The two was then approached by several police officers to dissolve the fight.
