A film director who could face charges over his documentary about an opposition politician said yesterday that police have asked him to surrender all remaining copies of the film and the equipment used to make it.
Martyn See said authorities have also asked him to hand over shipping documents for Singapore Rebel, which he sent for screening at the New Zealand Human Rights Film Festival and the Amnesty International Film Festival in Hollywood earlier this year.
See said police questioned him for three hours on Thursday.
Police have said See may have broken the law by knowingly showing or distributing a "party political film." See could be imprisoned up to two years or fined up to S$100,000 (US$60,606) if convicted.
Singapore's government is trying to promote this ultramodern city-state as an Asian regional arts and media hub -- but its leaders have been widely criticized for their strict censorship policies and other controls on free speech.
Leaders argue that such regulations help maintain the stability that has turned Singapore into one of Asia's safest and wealthiest countries.
Singapore Rebel is about outspoken government critic Chee Soon Juan, who faces bankruptcy due to defamation lawsuits filed by former leaders Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.
The 26-minute film was pulled from this year's Singapore International Film Festival after organizers were warned that it may contain some politically sensitive material.
See said that an assistant police superintendent questioned him on Thursday about his political affiliations.
He said police also quizzed him about his online journal, and about how he had obtained archived newspaper articles posted on his Web site.
"The mood was relaxed until near the end of the interview, when I felt many questions were totally irrelevant to the making of Singapore Rebel," See said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
The filmmaker agreed to surrender the video, documents and copies on Aug. 29 after he was informed that the items would be returned.
Singapore's government has called politically motivated films "an undesirable medium" to debate issues. See has said he made the film independently and is not an opposition member.
Police spokesman Victor Keong confirmed that investigators met See on Thursday.
He gave no further details, saying only that "investigations are ongoing."
DEATH CONSTANTLY LOOMING: Decades of detention took a major toll on Iwao Hakamada’s mental health, his lawyers describing him as ‘living in a world of fantasy’ A Japanese man wrongly convicted of murder who was the world’s longest-serving death row inmate has been awarded US$1.44 million in compensation, an official said yesterday. The payout represents ￥12,500 (US$83) for each day of the more than four decades that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention, most of it on death row when each day could have been his last. It is a record for compensation of this kind, Japanese media said. The former boxer, now 89, was exonerated last year of a 1966 quadruple murder after a tireless campaign by his sister and others. The case sparked scrutiny of the justice system in
A French-Algerian man went on trial in France on Monday for burning to death his wife in 2021, a case that shocked the public and sparked heavy criticism of police for failing to take adequate measures to protect her. Mounir Boutaa, now 48, stalked his Algerian-born wife Chahinez Daoud following their separation, and even bought a van he parked outside her house near Bordeaux in southwestern France, which he used to watch her without being detected. On May 4, 2021, he attacked her in the street, shot her in both legs, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. A neighbor hearing
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
‘HUMAN NEGLIGENCE’: The fire is believed to have been caused by someone who was visiting an ancestral grave and accidentally started the blaze, the acting president said Deadly wildfires in South Korea worsened overnight, officials said yesterday, as dry, windy weather hampered efforts to contain one of the nation’s worst-ever fire outbreaks. More than a dozen different blazes broke out over the weekend, with Acting South Korean Interior and Safety Minister Ko Ki-dong reporting thousands of hectares burned and four people killed. “The wildfires have so far affected about 14,694 hectares, with damage continuing to grow,” Ko said. The extent of damage would make the fires collectively the third-largest in South Korea’s history. The largest was an April 2000 blaze that scorched 23,913 hectares across the east coast. More than 3,000
RSS