Singapore yesterday said that it had refused entry to Hong Kong democracy activist Nathan Law (羅冠聰) over the weekend as his presence would not be in the city-state’s “national interests.”
The activist, who holds a UK refugee travel document, said that he had been denied entry when he tried to pass immigration after his plane landed at Singapore’s Changi Airport from San Francisco on Saturday.
He said he was sent back on Sunday on a plane to San Francisco.
Photo: AFP
“Law’s entry into and presence in the country would not be in Singapore’s national interests,” the Singaporean Ministry of Home Affairs said in a statement.
“A visa holder is still subject to further checks at point of entry into the country. That is what happened with Nathan Law,” it said.
Law had fled from Hong Kong in 2020 and the police there issued a warrant for his arrest for offenses under the National Security Law, the ministry said.
Upon arrival in Singapore, Law was “referred for questioning, and immigration and security assessment” at the airport, it said.
“Law was then refused entry. He was placed on the earliest flight back to San Francisco on 28 September 2025,” it added.
Law said he was granted a Singapore visa to attend a “closed-door, invitation-only event” and expected to be allowed in.
“I received the visa around three weeks prior to departure... I submitted all information, including the invitation to the event in the application,” Law said. “I attempted to go through immigration, but I was detained, despite having a valid visa to enter the country.”
“I was not told why I was detained,” he said, adding that he spent “roughly 14 hours” in Singapore.
He said he thought Singapore’s decision to deny him entry was “political, although I am unsure whether external forces, such as the PRC, are involved, directly or indirectly,” referring to the People’s Republic of China.
Asked about the case yesterday, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that it was not familiar with the situation, but that countries had the right to manage their own immigration processes.
“The person you mentioned is an anti-China, destabilizing force in Hong Kong who is lawfully wanted by the Hong Kong police,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Guo Jiakun (郭嘉昆) said.
Law was one of the student leaders of the 2014 “Umbrella movement” in Hong Kong, the sometimes violent pro-democracy protests which Chinese officials saw as a challenge to their rule over the territory.
He has lived in exile in the UK and the US since fleeing Hong Kong after Beijing imposed the security law on the territory.
Singapore has refused entry to foreign activists in the past, saying the city-state cannot be used as a platform for political activities.
DAREDEVIL: Honnold said it had always been a dream of his to climb Taipei 101, while a Netflix producer said the skyscraper was ‘a real icon of this country’ US climber Alex Honnold yesterday took on Taiwan’s tallest building, becoming the first person to scale Taipei 101 without a rope, harness or safety net. Hundreds of spectators gathered at the base of the 101-story skyscraper to watch Honnold, 40, embark on his daredevil feat, which was also broadcast live on Netflix. Dressed in a red T-shirt and yellow custom-made climbing shoes, Honnold swiftly moved up the southeast face of the glass and steel building. At one point, he stepped onto a platform midway up to wave down at fans and onlookers who were taking photos. People watching from inside
A Vietnamese migrant worker yesterday won NT$12 million (US$379,627) on a Lunar New Year scratch card in Kaohsiung as part of Taiwan Lottery Co’s (台灣彩券) “NT$12 Million Grand Fortune” (1200萬大吉利) game. The man was the first top-prize winner of the new game launched on Jan. 6 to mark the Lunar New Year. Three Vietnamese migrant workers visited a Taiwan Lottery shop on Xinyue Street in Kaohsiung’s Gangshan District (崗山), a store representative said. The player bought multiple tickets and, after winning nothing, held the final lottery ticket in one hand and rubbed the store’s statue of the Maitreya Buddha’s belly with the other,
‘NATO-PLUS’: ‘Our strategic partners in the Indo-Pacific are facing increasing aggression by the Chinese Communist Party,’ US Representative Rob Wittman said The US House of Representatives on Monday released its version of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, which includes US$1.15 billion to support security cooperation with Taiwan. The omnibus act, covering US$1.2 trillion of spending, allocates US$1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative, as well as US$150 million for the replacement of defense articles and reimbursement of defense services provided to Taiwan. The fund allocations were based on the US National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2026 that was passed by the US Congress last month and authorized up to US$1 billion to the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency in support of the
HIGH-TECH DEAL: Chipmakers that expand in the US would be able to import up to 2.5 times their new capacity with no extra tariffs during an approved construction period Taiwan aims to build a “democratic” high-tech supply chain with the US and form a strategic artificial intelligence (AI) partnership under the new tariffs deal it sealed with Washington last week, Taipei’s top negotiator in the talks said yesterday. US President Donald Trump has pushed Taiwan, a major producer of semiconductors which runs a large trade surplus with the US, to invest more in the US, specifically in chips that power AI. Under the terms of the long-negotiated deal, chipmakers such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) that expand US production would incur a lower tariff on semiconductors or related manufacturing
RSS