MHA rejects TOC’s application to cancel Pofma correction order over post alleging police bullying

SINGAPORE — The Home Affairs Ministry (MHA) has rejected an application by The Online Citizen Asia (TOC) to cancel a correction direction issued to it under Singapore’s fake news law, over a post claiming the police had bullied an older woman for not wearing a mask.

In a statement on Friday (May 28), MHA said that “the conditions for issuing the correction direction are satisfied, and the application did not disclose any grounds to the contrary”.

After having carefully considered the application, Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam has decided to reject it, the ministry said. 

The correction order, issued last Friday under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act 2019 (Pofma), pertains to an Instagram story by user @nichology that was shared by TOC on its online platforms last Tuesday.

It claimed that police officers had clustered around a woman who took off her mask because she was feeling breathless, and had continued telling her off even though she wore a mask later.

The police refuted these claims last Wednesday, saying they had been helping the woman — who has dementia — find her way home. They had also bought her food.

Under the order, TOC is required to put up a notice that the post in question contained a false statement.

TOC has been notified of the rejection, MHA added.

On Tuesday, TOC published an interview with the woman on Facebook. In the video, she is seen responding to questions posed by an interviewer, saying the police had not bought her food and that she was “chased” back to her home. 

In response, the authorities released footage from one of the officers’ body-worn cameras on its Facebook page, debunking TOC’s version of the incident.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday, Mr Shanmugam also said the daughter of the woman confirmed her mother had dementia, and was upset that TOC had taken advantage of her mother to “spin a story” and get her to say things. 

“I would say this is despicable and how low people will stoop. Unethical and cynical. This whole exercise by TOC is quite malicious to attack the police,” he had said.