Singapore has rejected a call by former political prisoners to scrap a British colonial law allowing detention without trial, saying it allows the government to fight serious security threats.
The Singaporean Ministry of Home Affairs said the former detainees were held under the Internal Security Act (ISA) for “subversive” activities and not for their political beliefs.
The ministry’s reaction, posted on its Web site on Friday, came after 16 former ISA detainees this month wrote a rare public message demanding the abolition of the law after Malaysia vowed to repeal similar legislation.
The ISA has been denounced by critics in Singapore and Malaysia as a tool to stifle dissent, but the city-state’s home ministry said the law was necessary to fight threats to national security.
One of the petitioners was Chia Thye Poh, who spent 26 years in detention and was one of the world’s longest-held political prisoners along with South African democracy icon and former president Nelson Mandela.
Chia was a socialist intellectual and opposition lawmaker in the 1960s who was accused of being a communist subversive, a charge he firmly denied.
“These 16 ex-detainees were not detained for their political beliefs, but because they had involved themselves in subversive activities which posed a threat to national security,” the ministry said.
Nine of them were “actively involved” in communist activities “committed to the violent overthrow of the constitutionally-elected governments in Singapore and Malaysia” in the 1960s and 1970s, the ministry said.
It said they infiltrated trade unions and student organizations and instigated labor strikes and demonstrations to create conditions necessary for a communist revolution.
Seven of them were involved in a “Marxist plot to subvert and destabilise Singapore” in the 1980s, the ministry added.
The ISA, first implemented by Britain after World War II to fight communist insurgents in colonies collectively known as Malaya, was retained by Singapore after it became independent from the Malaysian federation in 1965.
Calls for Singapore to abolish the ISA emerged after Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak announced earlier this month that his government would repeal it.
However, Singapore said the ISA remains relevant because of threats from extremist groups and “self-radicalised” individuals.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to