Police warn Gilbert Goh against plan to deface PM Lee poster at May Day protest
Police on Wednesday warned activist Gilbert Goh against an online call he made to deface a poster of Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at his protest event at Hong Lim Park, planned for Thursday.
In a public post Goh shared on his personal Facebook page on Saturday, 19 April, he encouraged participants of his planned “labour day protest” to “vent their anger” at a “huge poster” of PM Lee, which he planned to display at the event.
“You can spit, throw eggs, splash dog poo, draw graffiti and kick at the poster of our Prime Minister,” he wrote. “We don’t need to respect him at all… for he has never care [sic] for us one bit.”
Some 145 people liked his post, where he called PM Lee “a disgraced leader to all Singaporeans”, claiming that he “constantly side [sic] with all foreigners residing here and chastised his own people who incidentally have voted him into office”.
In a follow-up post on its own Facebook page, police spokespersons said Goh “was advised against carrying out such activities during the demonstration”, as they would risk committing criminal offences.
“Mr Goh was also advised to remove any online postings that called on participants of his demonstration to conduct activities that might be against the law,” they said. Checks on Goh’s Facebook page at about 9:15pm on Wednesday showed that his initial post is still accessible, however.
Goh responded at 4:30pm on Wednesday with a post on his Facebook page, saying, “But that doesn’t mean we can’t scold him for his errant pro-foreigner policies right? Which PM in the world invites others to take over his own country?” His latest post had 154 likes and 19 shares.
This isn’t the first time Goh has risked trouble with local police. He and participants of a protest earlier this year against the latest public transport fare hike faced a similar run-in with police officers after unveiling an “effigy” of transport minister Lui Tuck Yew, which they initially planned to burn, but ended up splashing water at after they were warned against it.
