Singapore Police probe shameful xenophobic comments on Nepal flood
Singapore police are investigating “shameful” and “totally unacceptable” racist and xenophobic comments posted online about the Nepal-Tibet flood disaster and Singapore Airlines’ investment in Air India (AI), Senior Minister K Shanmugam said on Saturday.
Shanmugam, who is also Home Affairs Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security, said the Ministry of Digital Development and Information would also ask social media platforms to remove comments that breach their guidelines.
“I have asked police to look into these comments,” Channel News Asia (CNA) quoted Shanmugam as saying. Calling the comments “shameful, nasty, totally unacceptable”, Shanmugam said some media outlets had removed comments because they were particularly offensive. “These people should be unmasked and dealt with, rather than be allowed to hide behind online anonymity,” he said.
He cited several racist remarks targeting Indians and Singaporeans missing in the Nepal flash floods, including “I only see Indian faces here. Skip. Rescue cut.” He said “ABNN”, a derogatory term for Indians, was also used in one of the comments.
Shanmugam said the comments had surfaced even as more than 1,000 people had died in Nepal and many Singaporeans remained unaccounted for.
Nine Singaporeans remained missing after Nepal’s deadly flash floods, CNA reported. The flash floods, triggered by an ice-rock avalanche near the Nepal-Tibet border on August 26, devastated towns and villages in northern and central Nepal. At least 589 foreign nationals, remain missing as of Saturday.
