In March 2018, a Select Committee appointed by Parliament heard 170 written representations and 65 oral representations – including a marathon six-hour grilling of historian Thum Ping Tjin – in addition to a seven-week public consultation on deliberate online falsehoods, or fake news. (PHOTO: Dhany Osman / Yahoo News Singapore) Members of the Select Committee on Deliberate Online Falsehoods: (From left) Desmond Lee, K Shanmugam, Charles Chong, Janil Puthucheary, Pritam Singh, Sun Xueling and Rahayu Mahzam. While Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong had said in 2004 that authorities would not actively enforce 377A, Attorney-General Lucien Wong said in October that the Public Prosecutor (PP) had “the discretion to institute, conduct or discontinue any proceedings for any offence is vested in the Attorney-General as the PP”.Īccording to a Blackbox poll commissioned by Yahoo News Singapore, which was conducted from 12-19 October this year, most Singapore residents favour retaining Section 377A without enforcement. Shanmugam have also weighed in, saying that any decision on 377A is a matter for Parliament to consider. Politicians such as Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Petitions have since been started by activists on both sides of the divide, with religious groups urging a maintenance of the status quo, and a deejay filing a fresh legal challenge against 377A. Following this, veteran Singapore diplomat Tommy Koh urged a renewed constitutional challenge to repeal Section 377A of the Penal Code. Section 377A of the Penal CodeĪn emotive issue was revived in September when the Indian Supreme Court struck down a decades-old law that criminalises sex between men. The most recent issue to crop up: Malaysia expressing its desire to reclaim its airspace over southern Johor from Singapore, and the Singapore government’s assertions that Malaysian government ships have repeatedly encroached into the Republic’s territorial waters. And ever since the old warhorse took the reins of power again, several thorny issues between Singapore and Malaysia have surfaced.įrom perennial bugbears such as the status of the water agreement to a delay in the implementation of the High Speed Railway (HSR) project, ties between the two countries were at times reminiscent of the 1990s, when Mahathir – in his first spell as PM – took a combative stance towards the Republic. It was a political earthquake that reverberated across the Causeway: on, the Pakatan Harapan coalition scored a shock win in the Malaysian general election, making Mahathir Mohamad Prime Minister for a second time. (PHOTO: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg via Getty Images) Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia’s prime minister, pauses during a news conference at the Japan National Press Club in Tokyo, Japan, on Monday, 11 June 2018.
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