Issuance of Correction Direction Under POFMA on Falsehoods Regarding Minister K Shanmugam’s Comments in Parliament on 4 October 2021

1.   The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is aware of falsehoods circulated online by Jolovan Wham on Twitter, which misrepresented what the Minister for Home Affairs and Law, Mr K Shanmugam, had said in Parliament on 4 October 2021.

2.   The Minister for Home Affairs has instructed the POFMA Office to issue a Correction Direction to Mr Jolovan Wham, for a Tweet dated 6 October 2021 as the Tweet communicates the falsehood that the Minister for Home Affairs adopts the view that the rule of law does not operate anywhere in the real world, including in Singapore.

3.   He will be required to publish the correction notice on his online platform.

Clarifications Regarding Falsehoods

4.   On 7 October 2021, MHA issued letters to nine persons, namely Lim Tean, Andrew Loh, Kirsten Han, Martyn See, Julie O’Connor, Jolovan Wham, Kokila Annamalai, Lynn Lee and Facebook page Wake Up Singapore who had published false posts which misrepresented what the Minister had said in Parliament on 4 October 2021. The posts suggested that Minister Shanmugam had said, in Parliament, that the Rule of Law does not operate in Singapore.

5.   The Minister had repeatedly affirmed, in Parliament, the importance of the Rule of Law for Singapore and the Government’s strong and continued commitment to the Rule of Law. He had said there are some countries around the world where the Rule of Law is a concept for lawyers, but does not operate in the real world, and their societies live in utter misery. He used this as a contrast to how the Rule of Law is applied in Singapore.

6.   Eight of the nine persons have since apologised for what they did and/or issued clarifications. Only Mr Jolovan Wham has not published the clarifications. He has been issued a POFMA Correction Direction today.

7.   For the facts of the case, please refer to the Factually article “Clarifications on Minister K Shanmugam’s comments during the Second Reading of Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill” at https://www.gov.sg/article/factually081021 .

An earlier version of this statement had stated that eight of the nine persons had corrected their posts. It has since come to our attention that this is inaccurate, as one of the eight persons did not change her original post.