"The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel, without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting." - Henry James

***

This is worrying if true (i.e. if this is not another Robert Ho conspiracy theory):


[OFFICIAL]PoThePanda Statement On CID/ISD Lim Kopi Session 02/03/09 | PoThePanda's Xanga Site - Weblog

"On the 02/03/2009,I was picked up from my house at about 11am by 4 persons who identified themselves as CID.They claimed they were investigating a post on Molotov Cocktails that I had posted on the forum Stomp.With regards to this particular allegation,I wish to state that I had posted an article on Molotov Cocktails on Stomp sometime late last year.The article was copied and pasted from Wikipedia,and was posted up for information value due to its appearance in the popular game Left 4 Dead.2-3 weeks AFTER I posted the article,the MP Seng Han Thong got burnt.Apparently,someone made a police report that I had instigated the old man to burn the MP,via posting that article...

The next method they used was pure aggression,subjecting me to a barrage of personal insults / defamatory statements in an attempt to wear me down mentally.And then they would suddenly make an incriminating statement,trying to catch me off-guard so I would inadvertently “confess” to having “conspired against the state of Singapore” and / or “participated in terrorism activities.”

In what I feel was an attempt to wear me down mentally,they made a host of personal,defamatory attacks to me.Barbed comments like “You stay in a 3 room flat?It’s like a pig’s sty.” “You remind me of a donkey,of a mule.You are just an animal that needs to be shown who its master is.” “Some people say you can lead a donkey to water,but you can’t make it drink.Today I am here to force you to drink.” “You write rubbish,everything you say online is rubbish.”...

”Mr Tan,if you walk out of here tomorrow,you might get killed.You might meet with a mysterious accident,you might disappear and nobody will know what happened to you!”"


Even if the account of what happened during the interrogation is exaggerated, it still boggles the mind that not only could posting an article on Molotov Cocktails be taken as instigating someone to burn an MP (and move someone to make a police report), but that the police would take it seriously and interrogate the person.

In tandem with some other incidents I know of, it leads me to suspect that the justice system is being abused by people in order to settle personal scores.

Even if this guy only gets a "stern warning" in the end, or even if charges are not pressed, not only is a private citizen being unnecessarily inconvenienced, it's an immense waste of the police's time and other resources. Consider that 60% of police calls are nuisance calls and you get some idea of the scale of the problem.

While on some level it is good that the police respond to complaints from the public, given that Second Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam has urged the public not to treat the Police as "as a free resource which can deal with any complaint just because it is convenient to call them at any time round the clock" and noted that there is a shortage of police staff, it is amazing that random internet postings about Molotov Cocktails and an NMP conducting surveys in public warrant attention from them.

[Addendum: Or, indeed, naked people walking around in Holland Village.]

After all, if I called the police and complained that 5 children were making noise in the playground (both disturbing the peace and transgressing illegal assembly laws), they would (quite rightly) tell me to go and die.

Meanwhile, we hear of cases where the police do nothing when there're fights outside clubs and people get their noses broken. Misaligned priorities, anyone?


More evidence that our police should exercise more discretion before investigating ordinary citizens:

Someone: something funny happened to me

my friend and i were at the petrol kiosk, waiting for the car cleaning
so we were just standing around

the petrol kiosk also had a workshop
and at a corner of the workshop, i saw a sign that said "emergency eye wash"

but the emergency eye wash was blocked by a lot of tires
stacked up
so i took ap ic of it with my handphone

then... the workshop boss or something came up to me and asked what i was doing, and where i was from (it was pretty clear that he was worried i would report him. i think he thought i was from the safety regulartory body)

he said "why you take photo?"
so i said "Why cannot take photo?"

then he said, "you anyhow take photo at my place, i call police then you know"
so i said "call la. i call for you, want?"

i hate idiots who think they can scare ppl by invoking the law or the police when they have absolutely no grounds

he was like "you come my place take photo still still so yaya, i go your house take photo you like?"

Me: hahahahaha
singaporeans are like that

this guy took pics at shen xiong
health and safety violations

then the staff intimidated him and forced him to delete

Someone: i will refuse [if people try to get me to delete photos]
fuck them

really how to force
call
come i call for you

and they can't stop him from leaving either
singapore has no privacy laws

yes, it may be rude to take photos
but it's not illegal

Me: anyway not worth getting beaten up

Someone: actually it may be worth getting beaten up

the compensation
:P

anyway..
no this is the best part

so he was like "which one is your car?"
then he paused and went "nvm, later you leave i can see"

so my friend said
"no no nede to see. i tell you which one is my car. the blue one over there. number plate blah blah"

we were in a rush
or else we'd have waited there for the police with him

that idiot has aboslutely no case

anyway
so we went off
and guess what

at 11pm
they went to ***'s house
(Cos it's his car we were using)

the CID
went to his house
and they went
"i know you were at the petrol kiosk this afternoon at 1pm. were you there to top up petrol or were you there for some other purpose"

this is just damn dunny

"it's a natinoal security issue because we were taking photos of a petrol kiosk"
we may be planning to bomb it