Singapore is set to charge a civil rights campaigner with staging a one-man protest without a permit over an incident in which he held up a sign bearing a crudely drawn smiley face outside a police station.
Police on Thursday told Jolovan Wham, 40, that he would be formally charged in court on Monday.
Wham has previously had several run-ins with the authorities in the city-state, which tightly controls public assembly, the media and free speech.
Photo: Jolovan Wham via Reuters
The charge relates to a March incident in which Wham demonstrated his support for a young environmentalist, who said that he had been questioned by police over a similar protest days previous.
Wham posted a picture of himself holding the sign on his social media accounts.
Wham, who has already served two brief stints in jail this year, is to be charged under the Public Order Act, which regulates assemblies and processions in public places, according to a charge sheet Wham posted on Twitter.
He faces a fine of up to S$5,000 (US$3,720).
“These charges against me only show how absurd the situation has become,” Wham wrote in a text message, adding that he planned to plead not guilty.
“Calling what I did an assembly is an abuse of the English language. How can one man standing in public for a few seconds for a photo op be a threat to public order?” he wrote.
Amnesty International Southeast Asia researcher Rachel Chhoa-Howard said that the incident was “yet another example of targeted action” to clamp down on Wham’s “peaceful activism.”
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