Lianhe Zaobao letter on dorm cases xenophobic, says Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam
He speaks out against views in letter that linked outbreak to workers' personal hygiene
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 18 Apr 2020
A forum letter published in Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao that linked the COVID-19 outbreak in dormitories to foreign workers' personal hygiene and living habits showed racism and deep insensitivity, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said yesterday.
The letter, published on Tuesday, also showed a lack of understanding of why there has been COVID-19 transmission in Singapore's foreign worker population, he added.
While the average number of cases in the local community has stayed stable in recent days, the number of cases in dormitories has soared to the hundreds and now forms the majority of new cases.
This is primarily due to communal living and is not just a question of personal habits, Mr Shanmugam told Zaobao.
"Personal habits are extremely important: washing of hands, keeping yourself clean," he said.
"But when you put people together, when they sleep in the same room, they cook together and they are in close proximity over a long period of time, of course there will be high levels of transmission, just like we know (there are) also transmissions in households."
Instead of pointing fingers, Singaporeans should be coming together to take care of the foreign workers here, he added, as he credited them for helping to build Singapore's Housing Board flats and infrastructure and keeping the country clean.
"Our duty as Singaporeans, really, is to show them empathy and take care of them," he said. "I don't think this is the time to say it is their own fault."
He noted the Singapore community has mobilised to help foreign workers here, while the Government has stepped in to ensure they continue to receive their salaries, medical care and daily meals.
"All of these gestures - I'm not sure that many other countries are doing it - are really to assure the foreign workers that they are not just locked down in their dorms and left there to fend for themselves without any idea of what's going to happen to them," he said.
"That's not the way."
In the letter, forum writer Lee Shiwan had asked if foreign workers should not themselves be held responsible for the outbreak in the dormitories, given that they "like to gather and do not pay attention to personal hygiene".
Ms Lee had also said many foreign workers came from backward countries and brought with them "habits such as eating with their hands and eating under trees".
Lianhe Zaobao said in a statement that its letters pages publish a diversity of views, and the opinions of contributors do not represent the newspaper's position.
A day before publishing the letter, the newspaper ran stories about the conditions of foreign worker dormitories here and the need to include them in the battle against COVID-19, said Zaobao's forum editor Yap Pheng Hui.
"The intention of Zaobao in publishing the (letter) was to present a differing opinion so readers would be able to appreciate the diversity of viewpoints in society," he said.
Mr Yap noted that most of the letters the newspaper has received to date were against the position taken by Ms Lee, and have "provided well-reasoned rebuttals against the position put forth in the original article". The original letter had thus allowed for robust debates and allowed "a wider audience to reflect upon and understand the impact of the pandemic".
"Zaobao believes that it is through the diverse mediums of readers' letters, opinion pieces and investigative pieces by journalists that our society draws ever closer to the truth," he said.
Mr Shanmugam, who found the letter xenophobic, stressed it is possible for 57 per cent of Singaporeans to be professionals, managers, executives and technicians, or PMETs, because foreign workers form the base of the economy.
They, therefore, help build Singapore's prosperity and should be better appreciated, he said.
He also said Singaporeans are kind, compassionate and generous people. "We are bigger than the sentiments expressed in that letter."
* Action will be taken against Twitter user ‘Sharon Liew’ who made offensive posts to stoke racial tensions: Shanmugam
By Olivia Ho, The Straits Times, 2 May 2020
Action will be taken against a man who made insulting posts about Indians and Covid-19 on Twitter under the handle @sharonliew86 some weeks ago, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.
Mr Shanmugam said the "nasty posts" were done "deliberately to stoke anger, unhappiness (and) racial tensions".
He also remarked in a Facebook post on Saturday (May 2) that the person behind the post was neither female nor Chinese as the name "Sharon Liew" had implied.
Bedok Police Division officers have identified the Twitter user @sharonliew86 - a 34-year-old man who is believed to have been involved in two other cases involving offensive tweets.
Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of race can bring jail terms of up to three years and fines.
** Man allegedly posing as 'SharonLiew86' charged over offensive tweets against racial harmony
By Shaffiq Alkhatib, Court Correspondent, The Straits Times, 3 Jul 2020
A Singaporean man who allegedly posed as "SharonLiew86" to post offensive tweets was hauled to court yesterday.
Zainal Abidin Shaiful Bahari, 34, was charged with four counts of committing acts against racial harmony.
He is accused of creating a post on Twitter on Oct 11 last year purporting that the academic achievements of Malay students were inferior to those of their Chinese counterparts.
Zainal is also said to have used a racial slur when referring to Indians in two posts, on March 25 and April 17 this year.
In a fourth post on April 18, he allegedly made fun of the "pottu", a coloured dot commonly worn on the forehead by those who practise Hinduism.
The police said in a statement on Wednesday that officers received a report on April 18 on offensive content against Indian migrant workers by a Twitter user with the handle @SharonLiew86.
Officers from Bedok Police Division established Zainal's identity five days later.
Further investigations revealed that he was allegedly involved in other cases involving purportedly offensive tweets.
In their statement, the police said that they "will not condone acts that threaten racial and religious harmony in Singapore".
The police added: "Any person who makes remarks that can cause ill-will and hostility between the different races and religions will be dealt with swiftly and firmly."
On May 2, Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said in a Facebook post that the "nasty posts" were done "deliberately to stoke anger, unhappiness (and) racial tensions".
Mr Shanmugam added that action would be taken against the man.
The minister also said that the person behind the post was neither female nor Chinese, as the name "Sharon Liew" had implied.
Zainal was offered bail of $5,000 yesterday and his pre-trial conference will be held on July 30.
For each count of committing acts against racial harmony, an offender can be jailed for up to three years and fined.
He speaks out against views in letter that linked outbreak to workers' personal hygiene
By Lim Yan Liang, The Straits Times, 18 Apr 2020
A forum letter published in Chinese daily Lianhe Zaobao that linked the COVID-19 outbreak in dormitories to foreign workers' personal hygiene and living habits showed racism and deep insensitivity, Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam said yesterday.
The letter, published on Tuesday, also showed a lack of understanding of why there has been COVID-19 transmission in Singapore's foreign worker population, he added.
While the average number of cases in the local community has stayed stable in recent days, the number of cases in dormitories has soared to the hundreds and now forms the majority of new cases.
This is primarily due to communal living and is not just a question of personal habits, Mr Shanmugam told Zaobao.
"Personal habits are extremely important: washing of hands, keeping yourself clean," he said.
"But when you put people together, when they sleep in the same room, they cook together and they are in close proximity over a long period of time, of course there will be high levels of transmission, just like we know (there are) also transmissions in households."
Instead of pointing fingers, Singaporeans should be coming together to take care of the foreign workers here, he added, as he credited them for helping to build Singapore's Housing Board flats and infrastructure and keeping the country clean.
"Our duty as Singaporeans, really, is to show them empathy and take care of them," he said. "I don't think this is the time to say it is their own fault."
He noted the Singapore community has mobilised to help foreign workers here, while the Government has stepped in to ensure they continue to receive their salaries, medical care and daily meals.
"All of these gestures - I'm not sure that many other countries are doing it - are really to assure the foreign workers that they are not just locked down in their dorms and left there to fend for themselves without any idea of what's going to happen to them," he said.
"That's not the way."
In the letter, forum writer Lee Shiwan had asked if foreign workers should not themselves be held responsible for the outbreak in the dormitories, given that they "like to gather and do not pay attention to personal hygiene".
Ms Lee had also said many foreign workers came from backward countries and brought with them "habits such as eating with their hands and eating under trees".
Lianhe Zaobao said in a statement that its letters pages publish a diversity of views, and the opinions of contributors do not represent the newspaper's position.
A day before publishing the letter, the newspaper ran stories about the conditions of foreign worker dormitories here and the need to include them in the battle against COVID-19, said Zaobao's forum editor Yap Pheng Hui.
"The intention of Zaobao in publishing the (letter) was to present a differing opinion so readers would be able to appreciate the diversity of viewpoints in society," he said.
Mr Yap noted that most of the letters the newspaper has received to date were against the position taken by Ms Lee, and have "provided well-reasoned rebuttals against the position put forth in the original article". The original letter had thus allowed for robust debates and allowed "a wider audience to reflect upon and understand the impact of the pandemic".
"Zaobao believes that it is through the diverse mediums of readers' letters, opinion pieces and investigative pieces by journalists that our society draws ever closer to the truth," he said.
Mr Shanmugam, who found the letter xenophobic, stressed it is possible for 57 per cent of Singaporeans to be professionals, managers, executives and technicians, or PMETs, because foreign workers form the base of the economy.
They, therefore, help build Singapore's prosperity and should be better appreciated, he said.
He also said Singaporeans are kind, compassionate and generous people. "We are bigger than the sentiments expressed in that letter."
* Action will be taken against Twitter user ‘Sharon Liew’ who made offensive posts to stoke racial tensions: Shanmugam
By Olivia Ho, The Straits Times, 2 May 2020
Action will be taken against a man who made insulting posts about Indians and Covid-19 on Twitter under the handle @sharonliew86 some weeks ago, said Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam.
Mr Shanmugam said the "nasty posts" were done "deliberately to stoke anger, unhappiness (and) racial tensions".
He also remarked in a Facebook post on Saturday (May 2) that the person behind the post was neither female nor Chinese as the name "Sharon Liew" had implied.
Bedok Police Division officers have identified the Twitter user @sharonliew86 - a 34-year-old man who is believed to have been involved in two other cases involving offensive tweets.
Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of race can bring jail terms of up to three years and fines.
** Man allegedly posing as 'SharonLiew86' charged over offensive tweets against racial harmony
By Shaffiq Alkhatib, Court Correspondent, The Straits Times, 3 Jul 2020
Zainal Abidin Shaiful Bahari, 34, was charged with four counts of committing acts against racial harmony.
He is accused of creating a post on Twitter on Oct 11 last year purporting that the academic achievements of Malay students were inferior to those of their Chinese counterparts.
Zainal is also said to have used a racial slur when referring to Indians in two posts, on March 25 and April 17 this year.
In a fourth post on April 18, he allegedly made fun of the "pottu", a coloured dot commonly worn on the forehead by those who practise Hinduism.
The police said in a statement on Wednesday that officers received a report on April 18 on offensive content against Indian migrant workers by a Twitter user with the handle @SharonLiew86.
Officers from Bedok Police Division established Zainal's identity five days later.
Further investigations revealed that he was allegedly involved in other cases involving purportedly offensive tweets.
In their statement, the police said that they "will not condone acts that threaten racial and religious harmony in Singapore".
The police added: "Any person who makes remarks that can cause ill-will and hostility between the different races and religions will be dealt with swiftly and firmly."
On May 2, Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam said in a Facebook post that the "nasty posts" were done "deliberately to stoke anger, unhappiness (and) racial tensions".
Mr Shanmugam added that action would be taken against the man.
The minister also said that the person behind the post was neither female nor Chinese, as the name "Sharon Liew" had implied.
Zainal was offered bail of $5,000 yesterday and his pre-trial conference will be held on July 30.
For each count of committing acts against racial harmony, an offender can be jailed for up to three years and fined.
*** 3 weeks' jail for man who posed as 'SharonLiew86' to send racially offensive tweets
He had initially set up parody Twitter account to satirise racially insensitive Singaporeans
By Shaffiq Alkhatib, Court Correspondent, The Straits Times, 9 Jun 2021
A senior director of a computer software firm and two friends came together in July 2018 to set up a parody Twitter account to satirise racially insensitive Singaporeans.
But in an ironic twist, he ended up being the very person he had sought to satirise after his tweets became overtly offensive and racially insensitive.
Zainal Abidin Shaiful Bahari, now 35, who had posed as "SharonLiew86" to send multiple racially offensive tweets, was yesterday sentenced to three weeks' jail.
The Singaporean pleaded guilty to two charges involving acts against racial harmony. Two other similar charges were considered during sentencing.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy said the account gained traction and had over 5,600 followers by August 2018.
Zainal later took sole control of the account after his two Singaporean friends stopped using it in early 2019. He started sending the racially offensive tweets soon after.
On Oct 11, 2019, he created a post purporting that the academic achievements of Malay students were inferior to those of their Chinese counterparts.
He also used a racial slur when referring to Indians in two posts on March 25 and April 17 last year. The DPP told Deputy Presiding Judge S. Jennifer Marie the latter tweet was specifically made in response to an online report on the rising number of Covid-19 cases among foreign workers in dormitories.
"The April 17 tweet was widely circulated on the Internet... The accused took down the... tweet about 30 minutes after it was posted after realising the tweet had gone viral and was getting substantial negative attention online from... the public," the DPP added.
The court heard that in a fourth post on April 18 last year, he made fun of the "pottu", a coloured dot commonly worn on the forehead by those who practise Hinduism.
A member of the public alerted the police that day and Bedok Police Division officers established Zainal's identity five days later.
He later admitted to police that he had published public posts with the Twitter account and was charged in court last July.
Yesterday, DPP Senthilkumaran urged the court to sentence Zainal to at least four weeks' jail, stressing that his behaviour was "entirely typical of an 'online troll', who derives perverse entertainment by intentionally inflaming the emotions of others".
Zainal was represented by lawyers Sunil Sudheesan and Diana Ngiam. In his mitigation plea, Mr Sudheesan said his client is not racist and is "sincerely contrite". The lawyer also said Zainal had "tried to be funny" but "overstepped the mark".
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