Singapore activist termed anti-national for protesting sans permission: "Suggestive" of what's happening in India

June 3, 2017 protest in metro train

By A Representative
Suggestive of what has now begun happening in India, especially Gujarat, the Singaporean authorities on Tuesday charged Jovolan Wham, the country’s human rights activist, under the Vandalism Act, allegedly meant to justify all manner of authoritarian action by simply defining its opposition as ‘anti-national’, and hence a threat to the ‘nation’ and the ‘people’.
The authorities also charged Wham under the country’s Public Order Act, under which one requires a police permit for any ‘cause-related’ assembly that is held in a public place, or to which the public is invited, and organizing or participating in a protest without a permit is a criminal offense.
Wham, 37, was charged for three peaceful gatherings: The first, at an indoor venue on November 26, 2016, at a forum to discuss civil disobedience and social movements. Because Joshua Wong, who is not a citizen of Singapore, called into the forum from Hong Kong via Skype, Wham faced charges for violating the Public Order Act’s requirement to apply for and receive a police permit for an event featuring a foreign speaker.
He faced the charge under the Vandalism Act for organizing a “silent protest” on June 3, 2017, without obtaining a police permit, held to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the arrest and detention of 22 social activists and volunteers under the Internal Security Act in 1987.
At the protest, nine youths stood silently on board a Mass Rapid Transit train, each blindfolded and holding up a book, “1987: Singapore’s Marxist Conspiracy 30 Years On.” They then sat in empty seats in the train car and proceeded to read the book together.
The third charge is for a candlelight vigil outside Changi Prison on July 13 to support the family of a Malaysian national, S Prabagaran, who was slated to be executed for drug trafficking. Singapore authorities refused numerous entreaties from the family, lawyers, NGOs, diplomatic missions, and the United Nations to stop the execution and commute the sentence to life in prison.

A Hardik Patel rally in Gujarat, which invited cops to
register FIR for not taking police permission

Meanwhile, an analysis on the goings on around Wham, by Thum Ping Tjin, points to how the Punishment for Vandalism Act of 1966 (amended in 1970) was written “deliberately to punish political dissidents, by demarcating certain expressions of political opinion as criminal and anti-national. This not only suppressed free speech, but consolidated the power of the state to decide what constitutes the ‘nation’.”
Recalls Tjin, the Vandalism Act passed sought to “characterise legitimate political protest as illegitimate public disorder”, characterise people who practice political protest as “anti-national” and thus not only subversive but also enemies of the people, and “smear” those who questioning government motives as “outright falsehoods” against “the normal rules of law and civilization.”
Thus, says Tjin, the introducer of the Vandalism Act, Minister of State for Defence Wee Toon Boon, described vandalism as being done by ‘anti-social and anti-national elements in the name of democracy’, and even as frequently repeating the term ‘anti-national’, he emphasised that such ‘anti-national elements were ‘damaging or destroying public property which is provided for the benefit of the people.’
Even “Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew described vandalism as ‘a particularly vicious social misdemeanour, like taking a pot of paint and going to every bus stand and chalking up anti-American or anti-British or pro-Vietcong slogans’,” says Tjin.

Comments

From plagiarism to proxy exams: Galgotias and systemic failure in education

By Sandeep Pandey* Shock is being expressed at Galgotias University being found presenting a Chinese-made robotic dog and a South Korean-made soccer-playing drone as its own creations at the recently held India AI Impact Summit 2026, a global event in New Delhi. Earlier, a UGC-listed journal had published a paper from the university titled “Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis,” which became the subject of widespread ridicule. Following the robotic dog controversy coming to light, the university has withdrawn the paper. These incidents are symptoms of deeper problems afflicting the Indian education system in general. Galgotias merely bit off more than it could chew.

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

Conversion laws and national identity: A Jesuit response response to the Hindutva narrative

By Rajiv Shah A recent book, " Luminous Footprints: The Christian Impact on India ", authored by two Jesuit scholars, Dr. Lancy Lobo and Dr. Denzil Fernandes , seeks to counter the current dominant narrative on Indian Christians , which equates evangelisation with conversion, and education, health and the social services provided by Christians as meant to lure -- even force -- vulnerable sections into Christianity.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

Search This Blog