Is this the appropriate venue?

A recent altercation between activists and K. Shanmugam has shed light on the increasingly tightening space for political dialogue in Singapore.

Flag of the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) at a rally in Mountbatten GRC ahead of GE2015. Photo credit: Jnzl/Flickr.

On Wednesday, March 12, Minister for Law K. Shanmugam was approached by a group of protesters while holding his Meet-the-People Session (MPS) at Nee Soon GRC, for which he is a sitting Member of Parliament (MP). Two protesters stepped forward and asked him about the Protection against Online Falsehoods and Misinformation Act (POFMA)

Shanmugam later wrote a post on Facebook detailing the altercations, attaching a video of the exchange with the protesters. In his post, he asserted that “MPS is not a protest venue, [but] where residents go to their MPs to seek help.”

In line with Shanmugam’s post, PAP’s party publication Petir proceeded to list 13 constituencies where MPS have allegedly been hijacked by protesters recently. On social media, some Singaporeans have questioned this list, wondering why the previous 12 instances were not brought to public attention until now.

A day after Shanmugam posted the video on Facebook, the two sisters who had confronted him penned a response letter, titled ‘The Parts He Left Out,’ clarifying their side of the story and contradicting many points raised by the minister in his original post, mainly as to how disruptive the altercation actually was.

The letter established the protesters were willing to wait until the end of MPS to talk to Shanmugam, aware they weren’t Nee Soon residents, but wished to speak to him directly as “POFMA is a law drafted and passed under his purview, and implemented by law enforcement, which he oversees.”