Shanmugam to file police report over ‘seditious’ Facebook post

SINGAPORE — Foreign Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam has responded to an individual’s Facebook post that misconstrued comments on the Malaysian education system that he had made at a forum yesterday (Aug 27).

At the event organised by the Singa­pore Press Club, Mr Shanmugam had said the Chinese community in Malaysia are attending Chinese schools, which suits the Chinese leadership in various local areas, as they want to maintain control over the Chinese population.

At the same time, many mainstream schools in the country not only have a high proportion of Malays, but are also becoming more Islamic, which discourage the Chinese from attending them. People of different races are thus kept apart from a young age, said Mr Shanmugam, which makes integration more difficult.

But the individual who made the Facebook post, identified by the minister as Ms Thanapal, “unfortunately twisted what I had said and suggested that I was an ‘Islamaphobic bigot who thinks Malay-Muslims are a threat’”.

Mr Shanmugam said: “I had not said anything like that ... The video clip of the news carried the essence of what I said, and this is also evident from the transcript of what I had said.

“What Ms Thanapal wrote is inaccurate and seditious, and attributes to me sentiments that I do not hold and have never held. I intend to file a police report about this tomorrow,” he added.

A check at 10pm showed that the Facebook user in question had removed the post.