A 63-year-old man in Singapore is under investigation for allegedly confining his 15-year-old daughter to a tiny market stall for nearly a year. According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the man, surnamed Tan, had been selling vegetables at a market on Circuit Road for a decade. He allegedly made his teen daughter live in one of the three stalls he rented at the wet market for 11 months. The 15-year-old was discovered when a neighbouring stall owner smelled excrement coming from Mr Tan’s stall and reported it to Singapore’s National Environment Agency. 

The staff from the agency discovered the girl in April, SCMP reported. The 15-year-old had been living in the six-square-metre space. Crammed into the small area was a desk, fridge, fan and a makeshift dirty bed on the floor. 

Neighbours said that the father-daughter duo, originally from Malaysia, had been living in the stall virtually day and night. They had never seen the girl go to school. The neighbours said that the 15-year-old did not leave the stall, even to wash or go to the toilet, and the gate was shut during the day as well as at night. 

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Mr Tan was protective of his daughter and never let her talk to other stall owners, they said. He also rejected offers to help. “He did not beat or abuse her, but treated her like a pet,” a neighbour said, per SCMP. The neighbours also said that the duo used to have a home, but was not known why they moved to the stall. 

Singapore’s National Environment Agency reported the case to the Ministry of Social and Family Development, following which the girl was sent to hospital for a check-up. Neighbours said they spotted Mr Tan a few times after his daughter was hospitalised. He reportedly told them he would be taking her back to Malaysia. 

The police are investigating the father for alleged child abuse. The probe is yet to reach a conclusion. 

Notably, under Singapore’s Children and Young Persons Act, ill-treatment of a child aged 16 or younger can result in a fine of up to USD 5,900 and a maximum jail term of eight years.
 

Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong’s brother Lee Hsien Yang sued for defamation over allegations relating to their rental of two state-owned bungalows | file photo
| Photo Credit: AFP

Singapore’s two Indian-origin cabinet Ministers have sued Lee Hsien Yang, the younger brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, for defamation over allegations relating to their rental of two state-owned bungalows.

The case conference will take place on Tuesday (September 5) at 9 am, according to a hearing list on the Singapore Courts’ website, Channel News Asia reported on Saturday.

The two ministers – Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan – had sent lawyers’ letters to Lee Hsien Yang in July, saying they would sue unless he apologises, withdraws his allegations and pays damages relating to the colonial-era bungalows in Ridout Road.

In a Facebook post on July 27, Shanmugam said Lee Hsien Yang had accused him and Balakrishnan of “acting corruptly and for personal gain by having Singapore Land Authority (SLA) give us preferential treatment by illegally felling trees without approval, and also having SLA pay for renovations to 26 and 31 Ridout Road”.

These allegations are false, Mr. Shanmugam added.

Lee Hsien Yang and his wife left the country after declining to attend a police interview in July 2022 that relates to lying in judicial proceedings about the will of his late father and founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

Mr. Shanmugam says he rented Ridout Road property to prepare for sale of family home, not profiting from rental.

The issue surrounding the rental of the two Ridout Road state properties surfaced in early May when opposition politician and Reform Party chief Kenneth Jeyaretnam questioned if the ministers were “paying less than the fair market value” for the bungalows.

The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) was tasked to investigate whether there was any misconduct related to the transactions and found no wrongdoing.

The CPIB report, released on June 28, said the two ministers did not benefit from getting any privileged information. They were not given preferential treatment and their rental rates were comparable to that of neighbouring properties, the report stated.

The issue was debated in parliament on July 3.

Lee Hsien Yang has made at least eight Facebook posts on Ridout Road before and after CPIB’s report and the parliament debate, according to the channel report.

A Facebook post on July 23 resulted in a correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), with the Law Ministry saying that it contained untrue statements.

Although Lee Hsien Yang had put up a correction notice as required, he also published a new post two days later saying he stood by what he wrote.

Pointing out that his post was made in the United Kingdom, Lee Hsien Yang said, “If K. Shanmugam and V. Balakrishnan believe that they have a real case, then they should sue me in the U.K.” Although Lee Hsien Yang is overseas, he can still be sued in Singapore, according to the media report.

File picture of fomer Singaporean Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam New Delhi. He is hoping to become the next Singapore-born Indian-origin head of the state
| Photo Credit: PTI

Singaporeans voted in large numbers on Friday in the country’s first contested presidential election in more than a decade, a closely-watched three-way race in which former minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam is hoping to become the next Singapore-born Indian-origin head of the state.

This is the first contested presidential election since 2011. Apart from Mr. Tharman, two other candidates in the race for the country’s ninth President are Ng Kok Song, a former chief investment officer with the Government of Singapore Investment Corp (GIC), and Tan Kin Lian, the former chief of the NTUC Income, a state-owned union-based insurance group.

The three candidates have been chosen under strict criteria. Singapore has a stringent qualification process for candidates vying for the presidency.

Mr. Tharman, 66, an Indian-origin Singapore-born economist, formally launched his campaign in July with a pledge to evolve the country’s culture to keep it a “shining spot” in the world.

Having joined politics in 2001, Mr. Tharman has served in the public sector and ministerial positions with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) for over two decades.

He supports his qualification to be the next president of the prosperous state by citing his international experience across various fields including pandemic preparedness and human development.

He also has experience in the government and with the city state’s foreign reserves, estimated to be over Singapore dollars 2 trillion.

Mr. Tharman, who served as Singapore’s Deputy Prime Minister between 2011-2019, resigned in July from public and political posts to run for the presidency.

Indian-origin presidents

Singapore in the past had two Indian-origin presidents.

Sellapan Ramanathan, popularly known as S.R. Nathan, a Singaporean politician and civil servant of Tamil descent has served as the president of Singapore. In 2009, Mr. Nathan defeated Benjamin Sheares to become Singapore’s longest-serving president.

Chengara Veetil Devan Nair, better known as Devan Nair, served as the third president of Singapore from 1981 until his resignation in 1985. Born in 1923 in Malacca, Malaysia, he was the son of a rubber plantation clerk, who was originally from Thalassery, Kerala.

Incumbent President Halimah Yacob’s six-year term will end on September 13.

She is the country’s eighth and first female president. The 2017 presidential poll was a reserved election, in which only members of the Malay community were allowed to contest. Ms. Halimah was named president then as there were no other candidates.

A referendum

The presidential election is being seen as a referendum on the party that has ruled the island nation for more than six decades. The next general election is due in Singapore by 2025.

Chinese people account for about 75% of Singapore’s multi-racial population. An estimated 13.5% are Malays and about 9% are Indians, with others making up the remainder.

This year, the election was opened to all ethnicities.

Singapore, with no resources, sits in the midst of resource-rich Asia and has grown into an Asian financial hub with links to the world’s two largest markets – China and India.

The first presidential election in Singapore was held on August 28, 1993.