THE TEMASEK REVIEW

By Fang Zhi Yuan

A few days ago, a group of around 100 Bangladeshi migrant workers gathered outside Singapore’s labour ministry on Friday, urging the government to give them work and retrieve overdue pay after they were laid off by shipping firms. (read Reuters report here)

A representative for the Bangladeshi workers said they were promised a monthly salary of at least S$400 and a work permit of 2 years. But with no work or pay for 4 months, they felt they were in danger of being deported.

Reuters did not report on the outcome of the protest or if the migrant workers were arrested by the police which should be rightly so since they have clearly broken the laws.

Singapore has tough laws on public gatherings, and protests are rare. An assembly of five or more people requires a police permit and offences under the Public Entertainments and Meetings Act could lead to fines as high as S$10,000.

Two previous protests were staged by Bangladeshi and PRC workers on 16 February 2009 and 31 December 2008 respectively without any intervention and none were arrested.

On the contrary, two Singaporeans, Mr Seelan Palay, 24, and Mr Chong Kai Xiong, 27, were detained on 12 February 2009 in front of the Manpower Ministry building at Havelock Road after they staged an hour-long protest in support of two Burmese nationals awaiting deportation following the Ministry’s refusal to renew their work permits.

The glaring double standard in the government’s handling of protests by Singaporeans and foreigners is becoming too embarrassing even for the local media to publish.

If a gathering of five or more is illegal and Singaporeans were arrested and punished repeatedly on several occasions in the past for breaking the law, why weren’t these protesting Bangladeshis and mainland Chinese arrested on the spot ?

To be fair to the government, they do have valid grounds for not arresting the protesting migrant workers, many of whom are being forced into a corner by vanishing bosses who defaulted on payment of their salaries. Arresting them will exacerbate already high tension on the ground and may even trigger massive unrest and riots.

Furthermore, arresting, charging and imprisoning a few hundred of them (assuming they do not have the money to pay the putative fine) will be a drain on precious public resources and does little to address the root cause of the problem.

Nevertheless, the government has only itself to blame for being stuck in the present quandrary with its rigid and zealous enforcement of draconian laws to curb the civil liberties of Singaporeans.

With more protests by foreign workers expected in the days ahead as the economy continues to take a turn for the worse, discrepancies in the interpretation and implementation of the law will be subject to increasing public scrutiny which will erode the government’s moral authority in convincing an increasingly sceptical citizenry of the need to keep those laws to preserve social and religious harmony.

Singaporeans will be wondering why the foreign workers are not arrested for assembly in a public area which can potentially lead to social unrest and disorder while the government and media often kick up a ruckus over a couple of locals committing the same deed.

What if the locals join in to protest with the foreigners at the same time, albeit for different issues ? How will the government respond ? Will it allow the protests to continue, call the police in to arrest only the Singaporeans or the entire assembly including the foreigners ?

Given the pervasive political apathy and lethargy in the population, the government can well afford to relax the rules to permit Singaporeans to assemble and protest in all parts of the island and even with official approval, few Singaporeans will want to be seen protesting.

After four decades of national “education” and propaganda, we have become so depoliticized as a people to frown upon all forms of overt expression of civil activism with disdain and disgust. In such challenging times, Singaporeans will rather spend the day either working hard to keep their jobs or looking hard for a job.

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