These are some of the photos I took today of the Tak Boleh Tahan! Protest. More photos and reports on the way.
For now, I want to show you these photos in which the peaceful protesters were manhandled and dragged away like wild animals into waiting police vans. It was a sickening display of the use of force by the police on people who were protesting peacefully.
16 Mar update: For more photos, click HERE
Parliament House. 10mins past 2.
Tak Boleh Tahan protesters arrive. They are surrounded by the media.
Taking a group photo in front of Parliament House along with protest placards. The groceries in front of the group symbolises the rash of price increases Singaporeans have had to put up with.
After Parliament House, the protesters proceed to walk peacefully but are stopped by the police, who are mostly in plainclothes, in front of Funan shopping mall.. The chap in white, facing Chee Soon Juan, is a senior police officer.
Female police officers arrive.
Yap Kheng Ho aka Uncle Yap being forcefully removed into a waiting van at Funan taxi stand
Yap is followed by Chee Siok Chin, John Tan, Seelan Palay & Chia Ti Lik of SG Human Rights, Chee Soon Juan and other individuals from the group of peaceful protesters.
About 10 individuals were dragged away and bundled into the waiting police vans at Funan’s taxi stand.
Crowd of onlookers watching events transpire.
Media Release: A peaceful protest abruptly stopped, Singapore Democrats, 15 Mar 2008
Today is World Consumer Rights Day. The Consumer Association of Singapore (CASE) is organising a special event tomorrow (16 March 2008, Sunday) to “promote the basic rights of all consumers”, and to “raise the profile of the consumer rights movement in Singapore”.
True to the cause championed by CASE, the SDP also organised a peaceful “Tak Boleh Tahan!” protest today, similarly fashioned to last year’s CASE event during which crowd wearing specially designed T-shirts congregated in front of the Parliament House, holding various placards in their hands, then walked around the Singapore River, etc.
There were about 20 odd people participating in today’s event, wearing the red T-shirts with the words “Tak Boleh Tahan” in white. In addition, there was a contingent of children holding red balloons, walking side by side with the grown-ups or being pushed along in their baby strollers.
In front of the Parliament House, the group also highlighted the recent price hikes by displaying an array of consumer goods which included a loaf of “no-frilled” bread, a pack of rice, a tin of Milo, instant noodles, biscuits, condense milk and cooking oil, etc.
The atmosphere was pleasant and joyful until the police showed up to give the protesters their warnings, and asked them to disperse or risked being arrested.
Apparently uneasy with those images and messages prominently featured on the placards, the police tried to seize them from the protesters. As the group proceeded towards the Funan Centre, plain-clothes police surrounded the protesters and started making their arrests.
While the protesters locked their arms together to safeguard their properties, the police picked the first protester, forcefully pulled him out from the tightly inter-locked group, and swiftly dragged him to one of the police vans parked nearby. Then they went back to work on their 2nd victim. Making their arrests one by one, it took the police several rounds of spectacles in front of a big crowd of onlookers gathered around to finish their most important job of the day.
Finally, about 15 protesters, including Ms Chee Siok Chin were bundled into the police vans and sent to the Cantonment Police headquarters. Later on, when some family members of protesters went to the police HQ and tried to find out more about the list of people getting arrested and their charges, the police refused to give any information.
Meanwhile, lawyer M Ravi is representing the group when the protesters continued to be held up for holding a peaceful protest until they were abruptly stopped by the police by force.
For videos and other photos, read TOC’s Protesters arrested for World Consumers Rights Day Event
Is this all the opposition in Singapore can muster? 20 in Red and a few kids? Really disappointing. No wonder some singapore bloggers have stopped blogging about politics. I will highlight yr plight in my blog
[...] (Click on pictures below to enlarge.) For more pictures, visit Pseudonymity’s blog. [...]
The Police babes are HOT!
hmm…i thought I’d seen this recently in malaysia. Singapore also has a version of it.
[...] can view more photos and find out more about the protest from this blog, which I strongly believe is written by an SDP supporter too. No Comments so far Leave a [...]
Is this going to the international media? It should, you know.
at first i thought the protestors are a bunch of nonsense.. sg has one of the best governements..
but after the pictures and reading this..
dear me..
its so apparent that the government is probably the most corrupted .. and its so evident to the people of sg but only lesser than a handful are doing something about it.
if they’re a great government and everything… they wouldnt stop the protestors.. because no matter what, they’ll know that the people will still support them.
this is such a bummer… now i’ll have to relocate again. wont want my kids in such an environment. sigh.
IOC shouldn’t have given Singapore the rights to host the 2010 Youth Olympics!
PAP resembles BN Malaysia in many ways.
I wonder why Mas Selamat wasn’t treated like this.
I guess SDP is of more threat to Sg than MSK then..
such respect for this people…they are representatives of those who does not have a voice to speak up. we have always grown up in a country where everything looks as if its hunky-dory. but this is life. it is a struggle. nothing is perfect. but we win as long as we struggle in our own way. walk with pride till we die.
much love.
xoxo
[...] are but sheep, lacking in intelligence and utter lack of respect. Which was why these people are manhandled and whisked away by the police who weren’t even wearing their [...]
PAP’s mafia police clamped down swiftly on SDP’s peaceful protest but they let PAP’s CASE do the exact same thing last year with more than a thousand lackeys “protesting”!!
a great idea would be to send this to the Washington Post…after talking about MM they should see the other side of the coin! Some democracy!
i’m sure the police gave warning before they decided to bring them in. ‘sides wasn’t it mentioned that chee siok chin bit the police while they were trying to bring her it?
somehow this post reeks of biasedness.
[...] than 2 hours after the last protester was bailed out of prison; and more than 4 hours after blogger pseudonymity posted his article, with photos showing the event [...]
[...] (PICTURES HERE) So today i was reading SgPolitics most recent blog entry about a peaceful demonstration about the price hikes and rising living costs in Singapore. And it came to the exact situation described above. It changes my mind of the police in Singapore, which to be honest hasnt been too good already, especially after the two most recent incidents involving Mas Selamat and the Shooting at Outram Park. Now they added another embarassing chapter to their more then doubtful work. [...]
mister chee SJ is a brave man and so is his sister and all the other s who were involved. I salute them!
the REAL cowards are the mafia in plainclothes and their cowardly men n women in white, shaking their legs n tongues in their air con office.
[...] as Slaves – To Fix a Mocking Peasant: Chee Siok Chin to be charged for Animal Abuse – Pseudonymity: PHOTOS: Singapore Police Manhandle & Drag Away Peaceful Protesters. More photos – Alien Nation: Something Rotten [Thanks louie] – Singapore Life and Times: Futile [...]
Well at least with only few ppl, they went on to protest bravely according to their plan…unlike cowards who will only rally in big groups or if have lots of support..the cowards wont rally in small group bcos ‘malu’ or ‘paiseh’ ma. so dont ctiticise ppl so much..the reason they bring kids is to obviously show a peaceful protest..sincere or not, the police did the manhandling in front of these kids? is that the correct way? well, that is the way the government deals with its opposition, sadly but unsurprisingly