Singapore police probe five over racist comments on Nepal floods, Air India
Singapore police have questioned five people over the alleged racist comments online related to the Nepal floods and Singapore Airlines' (SIA) investment in Air India.
This follows Senior Minister K Shanmugam's announcement on Saturday that the police were looking into “shameful” racist and xenophobic online comments about the Nepal-Tibet flash floods disaster and SIA's investment in Air India.
According to Channel News Asia, police on Wednesday confirmed they received reports and are investigating certain online comments related to both matters.
Five people, aged between 29 and 66, have been identified and interviewed in connection with these comments, police said. “We will continue to investigate and identify those responsible for these online comments.”
Police said they take a serious view of conduct that may hurt racial feelings or incite hostility and ill will between different racial groups. As investigations are ongoing, police are unable to comment further on the specifics of individual cases, they added. Shanmugam, the Home Affairs Minister, on Saturday gave several examples of racist remarks made online about the missing Singaporeans, including “No they are not our own”, “I only see Indian faces here. Skip. Rescue cut”, and “All ABNNs look the same, how to AI?” He noted that “ABNN” is a derogatory term for Indians.
More than a thousand people have died, and Singaporeans remained unaccounted for, he said, yet such remarks continued to circulate online.
News that Air India is seeking fresh equity from shareholders, including SIA, also sparked a new wave of “anti-Indian, racist ranting”, Shanmugam said.
The SIA holds a 25.1 per cent stake in Air India through a partnership with the Tata Group. Shanmugam said the Ministry of Digital Development and Information will ask social media platforms to remove comments that breach guidelines. “The media tells me that they had to remove several comments because they were so nasty. I don't know if all the comments are all made by Singaporeans. But, I will say this – the comments are shameful, nasty, totally unacceptable,” added Shanmugam.
Prime Minister Lawrence Wong also noted the racist comments online and said Singapore must never allow prejudice against any community to become accepted or normalised.
“We can and should have robust debates. But we should never use seemingly legitimate arguments as a cover to fuel prejudice against any community or hostility towards foreigners,” Wong said on Sunday.
