COMMENT: Why special policing of Little India hurts everyone’s civil liberties
Kirsten Han is a Singaporean blogger, journalist and filmmaker. She is also involved in the We Believe in Second Chances campaign for the abolishment of the death penalty. A social media junkie, she tweets at @kixes. The views expressed are her own.
It's a strange contradiction: in the wake of the riot in Little India last December the government had been eager to assure people that it was an isolated incident, unlikely to happen again. Yet the measures being rolled out are increasingly draconian, starting from an alcohol ban to the new Public Order (Additional Temporary Measures) Bill. No chances are being taken; all the stops are being pulled out to make sure that the people our government insist are happy and content don't do things that happy and content people shouldn't do.
If successful, the draft bill will have Little India designated as a "special zone" for the next year, where the sale and consumption of alcohol will be more tightly regulated than other areas in the country. The police will also be given additional powers: strip searches for alcohol will be able to be carried out (let's not even think about where they imagine people hide their booze), and people can be banned from entering the area if they are deemed to be threats to public order. Officers with the rank of sergeant and above will also be authorised to conduct raids on premises without a warrant if they think an offence has been, is being, or is likely to occur.
These proposed measures are framed as an issue of security, introduced to ensure the safety of Singaporeans even as the Committee of Inquiry's investigation is ongoing. But this is not really about security, and the implications of the proposal are alarming.
In a country so desperate to claim racial harmony, the bill paves the way for racial stereotyping and profiling. If it were really about managing the dangers of alcohol consumption, regulation and policing would be introduced across the country, from the little kopitiams to the posh bars of Clarke Quay all the way to the lavish extravagance of clubs around Marina Bay Sands. But this is not really about alcohol: this is about a certain group of people (read: South Asian migrant workers) having access to alcohol.
With so much discretion handed over to the police, the danger of officers resorting to racial profiling – whether consciously or unconsciously – is very real. The whole premise for such regulation in Little India plays into the patronising belief that poor brown people need to be policed more because of their inability to handle themselves, and it will come as no surprise if officers on patrol targeted people based on such unfounded assumptions.
The draft bill is only good for security if we think of “security” as nothing more than a superficial show of law and order, and ignore the social impact. With so much discretion handed over to the police the bill would foster animosity and resentment instead of dealing with any problems.
With an overwhelming majority in Parliament, it is more than likely that the People's Action Party (PAP) government will be able to push through the bill; it just remains to be seen if any amendments will be made. But this is a bill that should not exist. This is not about keeping Singaporeans safe from nasty foreigners. It is about the need to protect what civil liberties we have in Singapore regardless of whether it affects citizens or immigrants.
It will affect all of us when this proposal is enacted upon Little India, when we allow the government to hand over so much discretion to law enforcement and to open things up to racial profiling and prejudice. After all, if they can declare a “special zone” in Little India, they could just as well declare other areas “special zones” in the future, perhaps with even more measures of control.
