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MINDEF seeks court order against doctor-inventor, TOC

SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) is pursuing a court order under anti-harassment laws against a doctor-inventor and the people behind sociopolitical website The Online Citizen (TOC), over what it contends are false statements made and published.

Dr Ting Choon Meng earlier rejected the AGC’s demand to stop making statements about the ministry. Photo: Facebook

Dr Ting Choon Meng earlier rejected the AGC’s demand to stop making statements about the ministry. Photo: Facebook

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SINGAPORE — The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) is pursuing a court order under anti-harassment laws against a doctor-inventor and the people behind sociopolitical website The Online Citizen (TOC), over what it contends are false statements made and published.

Dr Ting Choon Meng and five individuals behind TOC were issued letters on Wednesday by the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), which is acting for MINDEF. The letters informed them of action being taken under the Protection from Harassment Act, which took effect in November.

A pre-trial hearing has been fixed for March 5.

The move comes after Dr Ting rejected the AGC’s demand to stop making statements about MINDEF relating to the infringement of his patent for a mobile medical station and that the ministry had deliberately delayed court proceedings.

Dr Ting, co-founder of MobileStats Technologies, alleges that the Battalion Casualty Station that MINDEF had bought from Syntech Engineers was copied from his design.

MINDEF said Dr Ting’s patent had been declared invalid by the court, and that it had previously told him to pursue his infringement claim with Syntech Engineers, the commercial vendor of the station.

Commenting on the latest action by the AGC, Dr Ting said yesterday through his lawyer Choo Zheng Xi: “I will strongly resist MINDEF’s attempt to use the Protection from Harassment Act in this manner. MINDEF is fully entitled to, and has told, their side of the story on numerous platforms. Relying on the (Act) is overkill.”

Mr Choo is also one of the individuals behind TOC.

The website had also rejected MINDEF’s earlier demand to remove an article on Dr Ting or post a preface to the article that redirects to MINDEF’s clarification statement on the issue.

Its lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam said TOC had published Dr Ting’s statements responsibly and that it had given MINDEF the right to reply to the statements.

Mr Thuraisingam argued that the anti-harassment law was meant to protect persons, and not institutions such as MINDEF, from false statements of fact.

The ministry had said earlier that false allegations that impinge on its integrity could dent public confidence in MINDEF and the Government.

Under the Act, harassment is considered an offence, whether it is committed in the physical world or online. If convicted, a person can be fined up to S$5,000 and/or jailed up to 12 months. For repeat offenders, this increases to S$10,000 and/or jail of up to two years.

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