Reporters Without Borders declines to attend public hearing on online falsehoods

SINGAPORE — The Select Committee studying online falsehoods on Tuesday (March 27) released the chronology of its correspondence with another international non-governmental organisation, the second time it has done so in five days — after Reporters Without Borders followed in the footsteps of Human Rights Watch in dropping out of the public hearings.

Marine Parade GRC Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng, who chaired the session on Tuesday, said the committee had “unanimously decided” to invite Reporters Without Borders, also known as Reporters Sans Frontieres or RSF, to give oral evidence at the public hearings. “RSF initially expressed interest in giving oral evidence, and proposed to attend this week’s hearings,” Mr Seah said. “However, it eventually cited ‘organisational reasons’ and declined to attend. I note that it has subsequently issued a statement doubting the sincerity of our invitation.”

Mr Seah was referring to a statement put up by the group on March 22 on its website. The statement said: “Doubting the sincerity of an invitation to address a parliamentary Select Committee that is supposedly helping Singapore’s government to draft a Bill to combat ‘deliberate online falsehoods,’ RSF will instead submit its recommendations when it has seen a draft (of the Bill).”

It added that it “prefers not to take a position on a draft Bill that no one has seen”.

Mr Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF Asia-Pacific desk, said in the statement that RSF “shares the deep concern that Singaporean defenders of the freedom to inform have expressed about this proposed law, which they suspect will be yet another tool for censoring dissent”.

In a press release, the Select Committee said it decided to invite RSF to give oral evidence on March 9. Four days later, the parliament secretariat wrote to Mr Bastard, inviting him to give oral evidence “on the afternoon of March 23”.

“On the same day, Mr Bastard replied, saying that he was based in Paris and unable to appear physically,” the committee said.

The parliament secretariat then asked if RSF had an office in Singapore or Asia, “from which it could send representatives to the hearings”. Mr Bastard replied that the director of RSF’s East Asia office in Taipei was not available to travel to Singapore on March 23, and asked if a Skype session was possible, the committee noted.

On March 14, Mr Bastard was offered the option of coming on any of the eight days set aside for the public hearings, with his travel costs paid for.

Mr Bastard replied that he will consider coming for the March 27 to 29 sessions. The committee said he added that “for organisational reasons”, he needed to “get the approval from my hierarchy”, and asked to get back by March 20.

The committee said that when the day came, Mr Bastard replied: “Unfortunately I won’t be able to come to Singapore this month, for organisational reasons. Since we are currently preparing our annual index, I need to be fully available at the office and the trip to Singapore will take too long.”

The parliament secretariat then asked if Mr Bastard or a RSF representative familiar with its publications on Singapore would be able to give evidence via video-conference at any time between March 20 to 29. “To date, no further communication has been received from RSF,” the committee said.

Mr Seah reiterated that the invitiation to RSF “still stands”. “Should RSF change its mind and decide to give oral evidence, they are welcome to write to us,” he said.