Australian expat fired after calling Singapore a ‘s*** country’ for not having Pokemon GO

SINGAPORE — An Australian expat working for property site 99.co has been fired from his job after he called Singapore a “f****** s*** country” on Facebook.

The man, Mr Sonny Truyen, was apparently upset that the game Pokemon GO was not yet available here.

“You can’t f****** catch Pokemon in this piece of f****** s*** country,” he wrote on Facebook.

His comments were screencapped by users of the Hardwarezone forum, who later uncovered that Mr Truyen had been working for 99.co.

Within a day, 99.co’s Chief Executive Darius Cheung published a note on his website and on Hardwarezone that Mr Truyen’s contract had been terminated.

“We are a proud Singaporean company and do not condone such language or behaviour, hence we have since terminated his engagement once the incident came to light,” said Mr Cheung.

“I apologise on behalf of 99.co, we pride ourselves to be a principled company that celebrates values like diversity and equality. We take responsibility for the public behaviour of any employee or consultant affiliated with us as a reflection of the company. We are truly sorry, do accept our apology,” he added.

According to Mr Cheung, Mr Truyen had started work with the company for only a week before the incident happened. Mr Truyen is listed as 99.co’s Vice President for Digital Marketing on LinkedIn.

Mr Truyen has since deleted his social media accounts. In an interview with Mashable, Mr Truyen admitted that his comments were “a d*** move on my behalf and a very big error in judgement to negatively label an entire country over Pokemon”.

“It was very wrong of me to rage like that,” he added.

However he also alleged that some netizens later made some racist statements about him.

“I was racially vilified for not being a ‘white’ Australian. It was disappointing the lengths Singaporeans went at to attack me and deny any chance of making amends for my actions,” he said.

Mr Truyen also urged netizens to “stop the witch hunt” against 99.co.

“Bombarding them (the company) with threats isn’t helping,” he said.