Hello from Switzerland (although not for long)! It's the end of a long day/week, and I'm struggling to keep my eyes open even as I'm typing, so please bear with me and if there are any typos... no there aren't. Got it?
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That's me done with my first visit to the United Nations Office in Geneva! I've been here for a week while the Human Rights Council is in session, observing and absorbing. It's also been an opportunity to meet with the delegates of various member-states and Special Procedures mandates. Singapore's human rights situation is up for review in May (alongside 13 other countries), so many of the permanent missions of UN member-states were interested in hearing more about what's happening on the ground. Many Singaporean civil society groups submitted stakeholder reports in October last year—covering LGBTQ+ issues, the treatment of migrant workers, the death penalty, and fundamental freedoms like freedom of expression and assembly—but it's still great to get an opportunity to sit face-to-face to provide briefings and answer questions.
I also spoke at a side event on gender and the death penalty. I've shared some of the comments I made at the session here.
I'm under no illusion that my efforts in Geneva this week will lead to any immediate transformation in Singapore. But since I got this opportunity, I tried to make the best of it. The Universal Periodic Review isn't very well-known in Singapore, especially since our mainstream media doesn't usually pay much attention to the process even when it's our turn. But it's a chance for activists and human rights defenders to get things documented and put on the record.
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'Tis the season to get trouble for the stuff you put on the interwebs. Singapore kicked off the week invoking the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) and ordering Meta to block a video showing a man stepping on the Quran. K Shanmugam, the coordinating minister for national security and home affairs minister, said the man who posted the video is out of the country at the moment, but will be questioned by the police when he gets back. According to Shanmugam, this is probably not the guy's first rodeo with such a situation.
On Wednesday, Jay Ish'haq Rajoo became the first person to be charged under Section 7 of the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), which is to do with deliberately spreading falsehoods online. He was also charged with defaming Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat, and charged for inciting ill-will between racial groups. That's kind of a Singapore kicking-freedom-of-expression-in-the-face hat trick. It's a lot.
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It's that time again, where Shanmugam crows about how much Singaporeans loooooovvveeee the death penalty. He pooh-poohed activists' arguments that many Singaporeans support the death penalty because of the government's deluge of pro-death penalty, pro-war on drugs propaganda. He characterised these arguments as "lazy" and "infantile". Which I found pretty funny, because the mainstream media coverage of his statement—regurgitating his words and framing all over their platforms with little meaningful attempt to explore different perspectives or criticism—was precisely what abolitionists mean when we point to the self-perpetuating cycle of only allowing pro-death penalty narratives in the media and in most public spaces, then surveying people about their views on the death penalty.
I've seen people on social media asking for information on the survey's methodology. I haven't seen information on this yet, but in 2023 Academia SG published a fantastic and thorough analysis, written by Dr Mai Sato, of past government surveys. It's a total must-read.
Got some more…
🤦🏻♀️ The Law Society of Singapore has initiated disciplinary proceedings against Pritam Singh. Because this drama that has looooong outstayed its welcome has inexplicably been renewed for another season.
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