CIVICUS discusses civic freedoms in Singapore with Sobikun Nahar, a community organiser and member of the Transformative Justice Collective. She campaigns against the death penalty, poverty and sexual violence using tactics that include door-to-door outreach and applied theatre.

In February 2024, Sobikun helped organise a ‘Letters for Palestine’ event where around 70 people walked to the president’s office carrying watermelon-decorated umbrellas to deliver solidarity letters. She was subsequently charged under the Public Order Act for organising an unauthorised procession in a prohibited area. Her trial – alongside co-accused Siti Amirah Mohamed Asrori and Annamalai Kokila Parvathi – began on 1 July.

What’s the context for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in Singapore?

There are numerous laws used to silence dissent. One is the Public Order Act, which came into effect in 2009 and is used to restrict protests and other collective public actions, in a clear infringement of our constitutional rights. This has long discouraged most people from taking action, but there are always those who still choose to exercise their rights and are prosecuted for it.

Additionally, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act allows the government to target those who criticise it online with ‘correction direction notices’. I was investigated under this law for a video I made with the Transformative Justice Collective on death row inmates and had to undergo a four-hour police interview for allegedly making false statements. Under this law, truth is not determined by the courts but by a government minister.

Now there is the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act, which was passed in February and allows the Minister for Home Affairs to issue restraining orders against people or organisations supposedly responsible for creating or sharing content that threatens racial harmony. This is scary, so rather than thinking about how to push the boundaries, most people are asking themselves how to continue to work within the boundaries. The problem is the boundaries are getting increasingly smaller and smaller.

How have these restrictions affected Palestine solidarity activism?

The restrictions have important implications for the Palestinian solidarity movement here. The issue of Palestine in Singapore is deemed racial and religious, which makes it difficult to mobilise on. The government has explicitly said no Palestine-related events can be held in Hong Lim Park, which is the only place you can hold legal protests in Singapore. Police have interviewed people just for tweeting about the issue.

Despite these restrictions, the anti-genocide movement has continued to mobilise, which is so heartening to see. So many new people have joined the movement. Initially, there was a lot of fundraising by groups such as Love Aid Singapore and Red Dot Relief to get food to Palestine. People also wrote letters and petitions about Palestine to the president and government ministers.

There have also been protest actions. In one held at Gardens by the Bay, activists put up a banner that read ‘End Singapore-Israel Arms Trade’. In January, students denounced the complicity of the National University of Singapore with a protest installation that featured 124 pairs of shoes and a white burial shroud placed outside the building that houses the Singapore-Hebrew University Alliance for Research and Education. In response, the police raided student residences and took away people’s phones.

Some have also tried dialogue with ministers, and members of Monday of Palestine Solidarity have tried to use meet-the-people sessions with members of parliament to raise the issue.

Why did you organise the letter delivery action in February 2024?

This action was planned around four months after the 7 October Hamas-led attack triggered Israel’s disproportionate response in Gaza. At that point, Singaporeans had been acting individually, writing letters or emailing in groups, but the government hasn’t responded. So along with Siti, I decided to organise a letter delivery action. I had done this twice before without facing any issues. We saw it as an opportunity for people to get their individual voices heard about the steps we wished the state to take.

Around 70 of us, all carrying letters, gathered at Plaza Singapore on 2 February. We didn’t consider this a procession, and past instances of letter delivery actions hadn’t been viewed as such. People who looked like police followed us as we walked for about 20 minutes. When we arrived, the Istana Security Unit knew we were there to deliver letters. They gave us a Ziploc bag to put the letters in and then some of us went in to deliver the letters as others stood outside. Everything went according to plan, so I was shocked when a week later we learned we were being investigated for carrying out an ‘illegal procession’.

What charges have been brought against you?

Initially, nine people were brought in for investigation in connection with our letter delivery action and another event held on the same day, Steadfast for Palestine, where participants chanted ‘from the river to the sea’, which was deemed to incite racial and religious disharmony.

After authorities interviewed – I presume – the majority of the 70 participants in our event, I was charged under the Public Order Act for ‘organising a public procession with the intention of publicising the cause of solidarity with Palestine in a prohibited area’. Kokila was initially charged only with conspiracy, but shortly before the trial began, her charge was amended to the same as Siti’s and mine.

How has the trial proceeded, and what support have you received?

The trial began on 1 July and lasted six days. The prosecution and the witnesses took around a day and a half. The prosecution’s main argument was that we knew our action was illegal and purposely chose to ignore the law. A lot of the focus was on trying to prove that Kokila was an organiser as well. They brought in CCTV footage and pictures.

The three of us were steadfast during the trial, although internally it was exhausting and scary. But we were not left alone: whenever any of us was called in, people would accompany us to the police station or be waiting outside. There were always at least three to 10 people there for us.

We knew journalists weren’t going to cover our trial, so students came to court every single day to take notes and reported on it in full detail, including courtroom sketches. The community also raised funds towards our legal fees and any fines we may face from the verdict: so far there’s around S$30,000 (approx. US$23,400).

What are your expectations for the verdict and your hopes moving forward?

The prosecution lawyers will deliver their final oral submissions on 16 September. The judge may give his verdict immediately afterwards or reserve his judgement. We know there’s a high likelihood we’ll be fined. However, we want to make sure the truth about our actions is out there. We don’t want to simply let the state have its way without any pushback. That’s why we haven’t pleaded guilty although we were advised to do so to reduce our sentences.

When the news broke that we were going to be prosecuted, we were floored by the amount of support we received online and offline. This seemed quite different from the public response to past prosecutions of activists. It has been moving to see people collectively recognising the injustice of repression and its implications for our ability to ensure our country acts in accordance with human rights principles.

I think amplifying our actions globally would help. When we did our letter delivery action, there were reporters there. However, local journalists don’t report on these things until the police or government issue a statement. Political and principled actions often only reach public consciousness as framed by the state’s narrative.