As China’s rapacious miners increase their resource extraction in various countries to feed an economy that is the world’s biggest consumer and producer of transition minerals, allegations of human rights abuses and environmental damage have increased across the globe. Ironically, some transition materials mined by Chinese polluters are …

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Kenneth Jeyaretnam, a trained economist who gave up a career in finance to take over his father’s opposition Reform Party as secretary-general to tilt at unassailable Singaporean political windmills, died in London on July 18 at age 67, leaving a fragmented and cowed opposition with one less voice.

Mr. Jeyaretnam’s wife, Amanda, announced his death after a lingering illness in a Facebook post on July 19. She said her husband had “died peacefully in his sleep surrounded by family.” Funeral details for a small family service are still being finalized, she told local media, and that a memorial to celebrate his life will be arranged at a later date.

“Kenneth was inured to the prospect of personal or political hardship and failures from watching his father’s dogged perseverance and political persecution as Singapore’s first elected opposition MP since its independence in 1965,” Amanda Jeyaretnam told Asia Sentinel. “Both father and son viewed political pluralism and civic participation as principles worth advancing regardless of personal electoral success. They believed that Singaporeans should have meaningful electoral choices and opportunities to exercise their democratic rights, even in a political landscape dominated by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) and their unbroken supermajority in Parliament.”

The opposition figure, his wife said, had been anxious to return to Singapore to face charges brought against him by the Singapore government and to return to the political fray, a wish he also expressed in conversations with Asia Sentinel, but as his illness progressed, he was never able to do so.

Although the Reform Party found little success at the polls, Mr. Jeyaretnam remained a tenacious critic of the Singapore government, and paid for it with numerous correction demands under the country’s controversial false news statute, the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, which gives individual ministers the power to decide what constitutes a “falsehood” and issue correction directions, rather than submitting the issues to a test by impartial legal bodies when evaluating criticisms.

He was under constant investigation by the police and the POFMA office for possible offences as well as possible contempt of court. Officials issued at least 10 such POFMA demands between 2023 and 2025 regarding government spending, lucrative property rentals by cabinet ministers, the National Investment Returns Contribution (NIRC), and auxiliary police hiring, many of his criticisms issued from his bed in London, where he suffered from deep vein thrombosis and bilateral pulmonary embolism that ultimately contributed to ending his life.

Mr Jeyaretnam never managed to secure a full-time career in Singapore despite his double first-class honors in economics from Cambridge, facing multiple rejections from various government agencies and civil service departments, according to recently disclosed details online, which said he lost his first and only full-time job working as an assistant manager in HSBC’s merchant banking arm, Wardley, in 1987. Mr Jeyaretnam was reportedly compelled to resign after only weeks in his job following political pressure applied through one of Lee Kuan Yew’s permanent secretaries, according to the report.

“I admired Kenneth for his convictions — for his belief in fighting for the underprivileged and for those on the margins of society,” said Lim Tean, Secretary-General, People’s Alliance for Reform, another splinter opposition party. “When he believed in something, he never wavered, no matter how unpopular that cause might be. That was the measure of the man, and it was his father’s spirit living on in him. On behalf of the People’s Alliance for Reform, I extend our deepest condolences to his wife Amanda and his son Jared. Our thoughts and prayers are with them at this most difficult time.

Other opposition leaders issued similar accolades.

Mr. Jeyaretnam was the eldest son of the late opposition icon J.B. Jeyaretnam – popularly known as JBJ –the first opposition politician elected to the post-independence Singapore Parliament in 1981. JBJ established the Reform Party in 2008 after Singapore government officials repeatedly sued him, harassed him with legal actions, bankrupted his original Worker Party, and sought to put him in jail. The father was a mortal foe of Singapore’s modern founder Lee Kuan Yew and jousted with him on the floor of parliament repeatedly. After his father’s death, Mr. Jeyaretnam contested three general elections against then Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s team but was unsuccessful.

He didn’t contest in the 2025 election, explaining that he decided against doing so after “the advice of doctors over some recent health issues,” which he didn’t specify. Deep vein thrombosis, which often occurs during long-haul international flights, involves the formation of a blood clot that forms in a deep vein, usually in the calf, thigh, or pelvis. It is dangerous because the clot can break loose, travel through the bloodstream to the lungs, and block an artery—a life-threatening emergency known as a pulmonary embolism.

Jeyaretnam studied at the United World College of South-East Asia and the Charterhouse School in England. In 1983, he graduated from Cambridge and went on to pursue a career in finance, first as a credit analyst at Wardley, HSBC’s merchant banking subsidiary, before moving to Continental Bank, Banque Indosuez, Lehman Brothers, and Nomura International.

In a letter to members and supporters posted on Facebook late on July 19, Reform Party chairman Mahaboob Batcha said RP was “deeply saddened” by Jeyaretnam’s passing. “Throughout his political career, he fiercely championed democracy and consistently put the needs of Singapore above his own political ambitions,” he said.

Besides his wife Amanda, Mr. Jeyaretnam is survived by their son Jared and his younger brother, High Court judge Philip Jeyaretnam.

Singapore officials have extended their unbeaten streak in domestic libel and contempt of court cases against the international press and local opposition leaders stemming from the 1980s with a decision by High Court Justice Audrey Lim, who on July 14 awarded Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng damages of S$230,000 (US$177,874) each for defamation by the leading global business reporting organisation Bloomberg and its reporter, Dexter Low De Wei.

As nearly as it can be determined, Singapore officials have never lost a case filed locally against international journalists or opposition politicians since 1983, when then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew allegedly demoted a sitting judge to a backwater position after the judge ruled against the government in a case involving then opposition leader Joshua B Jeyaretnam. Nor have they filed one outside their own jurisdiction. The current case had been closely watched by press organizations to see if Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, who took over a year ago from Lee Hsien Loong, the last representative of the Lee clan, to see if Wong’s administration would cut the courts some unofficial slack in their decisions involving critics of the ruling People’s Action Party political establishment. It was not to be.

Condemnation against this ruling has been swift in coming. “We are alarmed by Tuesday’s court decision, which will chill public interest reporting,” said Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi of the New York based Committee to Protect Journalists In a prepared release. “As a regional financial and media hub, Singapore must show it is open for business and public scrutiny, including of property transaction deals. Singaporean public officials should cease using defamation laws to target the media for their reporting.” The Paris-based Reporters Without Borders has also condemned the ruling as a “textbook SLAPP suit against Bloomberg and journalist Low De Wei and demanded that authorities “end their legal harassment of trustworthy journalists.”

SLAPPs (strategic lawsuits against public participation) are lawsuits intended to censor, intimidate or silence critics by saddling them with expensive damages and legal costs. “Nothing has changed in 30 years since The New York Times published an opinion piece skewering the compliant court system in Singapore being used by its political leaders to silence or intimidate their domestic opponents and to discourage critical commentary about Singapore in foreign publications that are distributed or have business interests in Singapore”, stated an anonymous political observer of Singaporean politics to Asia Sentinel.

A significant aspect of Bloomberg and Low’s defense was centered around their invocation of the Reynolds privilege — a defense developed in English defamation law — because they had exercised their duty to communicate important information to the general public. Justice Lim rejected that argument. She said the Singapore Court of Appeal had previously held that the Reynolds privilege is not part of Singapore law, but was a development brought about by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Human Rights Act (UK). Furthermore, Justice Lim also explicitly stated that constitutional free speech in Singapore is limited to Singaporean Citizens only, with no extension of such individual liberty afforded to foreign media entities employing them for covering Singapore-related news.

Not only has the timing of the defamation lawsuit been questionable, it had managed to evolve into fundamentally questioning whether the Bloomberg article should have been written at all. In the current case, stemming from a December 2024 news story titled “Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy.” by Bloomberg, the facts were not in dispute. The references to Shanmugam and Tan appeared to be factual, only pointing out their individual roles in the growing collective trend of secretive high-value private property transactions in Singapore.

Tan in 2023 purchased a S$27.3 million (US$21.3 million) Good Class Bungalow (GCB) located within the Brizay Park enclave, while Shanmugam had sold his Astrid Hill GCB in August 2023 for a whopping S$88 million (US$68.7 million). The property transactions were cited as examples to illustrate the booming yet increasingly secretive nature of Singapore’s GCB property market, which saw half of its 2024 transactions, including those of both government ministers, without publicly declared and accessible caveats.

The Bloomberg article noted Singapore’s attractiveness to rich foreigners as a politically stable tax and wealth haven to purchase and own luxury properties as part of their asset portfolios.

However, the article noted, this is tempered by concerns about the increasing usage of shell companies and anonymous trusts to purchase multimillion-dollar GCBs, with potential negative ramifications for Singapore’s global reputation for clean and accountable financial management. Indeed, somewhat embarassingly Shanmugam acknowledged in testimony that he had sold his house for S$88 million at 10 times profit to a buyer who did not use a bank loan and that he didn’t know the buyer’s identity, generating much comments on social media.

Singapore analysts describe this as very much Shanmugam’s personal vendetta against Bloomberg, with Tan See Leng strung along as cover. Shanmugam’s Astrid Hill ownership status was a major sore point for him in 2023 when he, along with Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, faced intense public and political scrutiny for their renting of state-owned colonial bungalows at allegedly below market rates and maintained on taxpayer dollars.

Justice Lim, however, agreed with Shanmugam’s argument in rejecting Bloomberg’s argument that the article merely examined a broader trend of non-caveated GCB transactions and that the ministers were cited only as examples. Instead, according to local media, Justice Lim said the article, when read as a whole, linked the ministers’ personal private property transactions with claims about secrecy, opacity and money laundering. Therefore, the Bloomberg article could not be seen as “responsible journalism”, but managed to create a defamatory impression.

After the story ran, the Singapore government ran into an unexpected problem. Officials first invoked Singapore’s notorious Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), giving individual ministers the power to to decide what constitutes a “falsehood” and issue correction directions, rather than submitting the issues to a test by impartial legal bodies when evaluating criticisms. The article, the two said, “attack[s] the transparency of property transactions in Singapore” and demanded that it be taken down, with the government’s statement to be printed prominently on its website.

Almost unheard of for a major news organization, Bloomberg refused to back down, saying on December 20, 2024: “Under Singapore’s Prevention of Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, Bloomberg is required under threat of sanction to publish this Correction Direction. Bloomberg respectfully disagrees with it and reserves its right to appeal and challenge the Correction Direction. We stand by our reporting.” It was only after Bloomberg lost their defamation defense in court in July 2026 that they finally retracted the article as demanded by the Singapore government.

In other cases, when press organizations ignored the order, the government ordered their publications and websites banned in Singapore. Bloomberg’s initial challenge effectively dared the government to block its electronic transmissions into the island republic, which would have resulted in significant disruption for its business community. Its terminals, the essential tool for professional traders and investors, are in virtually every financial office in Singapore, providing crucial real-time data and articles on almost every financial transaction that takes place anywhere on the globe. Without that information, Singapore’s financial industry, which competes with Hong Kong as Asia’s premier financial enter, would have simply come to a stop.

Faced with this impasse, both ministers instead decided to file suit for defamation, a potent weapon in its own right as borne out by Justice Lim’s decision. Both posted on Facebook that they considered the piece to be libelous and indicated on December 16 that they would be issuing Letters of Demand to Bloomberg and other outlets that reproduced the article in whole or in part.

In a statement published by Bloomberg News, the US company’s chief editor John Micklethwait said it was “very disappointed by this ruling but we will of course respect it.” Bloomberg, he said, “We at trial that our reporting was accurate and served an important public interest, and we continue to believe that the ministers have imposed an extremely strained meaning on what was a solid story. “Our newsroom – and our reporter – conducted themselves with integrity, and met all our editorial standards in preparing the story at the center of this trial. We continue to stand by them.”

In April, Thai Police Lt. Gen. Jirabhop “Kong” Bhuridej, boss of the Thai government’s new “Anti Cyber Scam Center,” was photographed having lunch in a Bangkok restaurant with a notorious Cambodian cyberscam center operator, Rithy Raksmei. The photograph, initially dated May 2025, soon went viral and left Jirabhop looking decidedly red-faced.

The photograph raised immediate questions about the nature of the meeting and the identity of those present. Raksmei, for instance, was directly sanctioned by the US govt in April 2026 for his involvement in criminal cyberscam operations. The Thai police and ACSC responded quickly with a press release that stated that the get-together was a bilateral meeting between Thai and Cambodian law enforcement. They also stated that the meeting took place in November 2024, not May 2025.

The fact is that Thailand has largely escaped widespread notice of its deep entanglement in the cyberscam ecosystem as its immediate neighbors Cambodia and Myanmar have reaped massive negative publicity. The country is thought to act as a major transit point for human trafficking, a base for money laundering networks, and a victim of staggering domestic fraud. Jirabhop ‘s presence at that lunch is evidence that the presence of cyberscam networks is bolstered by corruption, with organized crime elements deeply intertwined with local officials and foreign syndicates.

The question that remains completely unanswered by the Thai police was what someone as notorious as Rithy Raksmei was doing at an important bilateral meeting. This failure to even mention Raksmei in the press release inevitably led to further negative speculation. Other Cambodians were at that November 2024 lunch meeting as well – the two most prominent being two Deputy Commissioner Generals of the Cambodian National Police, Neth Sovoeun, who is also Deputy Prime Minister of Cambodia – and Sam Vannvirak.

The attendance of senior Cambodian police officials gave some credence to the Thai police’s explanation but, given that Raksmei’s involvement in operating Cambodian-based cyber scam centers had been known for years - the US government’s 2026 sanctions press release makes it clear Raksmei had been operating since 2019. What was Raksmei doing there? Another individual at the meeting was former Thai Police General Visanu Prasatthong-Osoth. However, if we accept the Thai police’s November 2024 date for the “bilateral meeting” by that point Visanu, who had retired from the Thai police in late 2023, was no longer a serving officer.

In fact, in November 2024, Visanu was serving as the Chairman of Airports of Thailand (AOT). And once again we come to the same question, only this time with a different name and two queries. In the first instance, what was the Chairman of one of Thailand’s most important state enterprises doing at a bilateral meeting to discuss law enforcement issues, and secondly, what was the Chairman of AOT doing meeting known cyber scam center operators?

Despite an earlier request to AOT’s press team from the authors of this article, there’s been no explanation as to why the Chairman of AOT was at this meeting. And the Thai police have offered no explanation either.

Of course, the usual outcome of a serious bilateral meeting between the law officials of two nations wouldn’t be random photographs released 18months later of various police officers, a company chairman and a wanted cyber scam center criminal all sitting down for lunch together. In most circumstances, there’d be official joint statements, press announcements before and after the event, memorandums of understanding, notes of the meeting, etc. None of this exists, and it seems the official bilateral meeting between Thai and Cambodia law enforcement held in a Bangkok restaurant in November 2024 only came into existence once photographs of it emerged on the CSI LA Facebook page in 2026

However, there’s more. Our blog - thaiscamwatch.blogspot.com - has recently published a troubling photograph of the Chairman of AOT, Police General Visanu, meeting another notorious cyber scam operator, Ly Yong Phat. The photograph dates from sometime in 2024 - with the most likely date being Aug 2024 - and was taken at the Phnom Penh Hotel in the Cambodian capital. By September 2024, Ly Yong Phat was placed on the sanctions list by the US Government for his involvement in the cyber scam industry. As the US Government press release states, several of Ly Yong Phat’s cyber scam compounds had been raided both in 2022 and early 2024 prior to the sanctions being placed. As was made clear above, in 2024, Visanu was the Chairman of AOT.

While a photograph in and of itself of the Chairman of AOT meeting yet another well-known cyber scam operator is not evidence of any wrongdoing, it should’ve certainly raised concerns at a board level within the company due to the reputational damage it could cause to a publicly listed company. AOT, whilst majority-owned by the Thai Government, has other shareholders and investors to whom it is answerable. One of AOT’s shareholders is the Government Pension Fund of Norway (usually referred to as the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund) who supposedly has an “ethical” investment policy. Are they aware that the Chairman of AOT was repeatedly hanging out with criminals involved in running enterprises that human rights organisations’ investigations reveal include rape, torture, murder and human trafficking?

Directorships at large companies during and post-career for senior Thai Police and military officers like Visanu are considered to be an expected “perk” of their rank. Thailand’s company boards are stuffed full of generals, admirals and air marshals. Even the aforementioned Jirabhop, while currently serving in a senior and very important role as head of the cybercrime unit, is also on the board of directors at both AOT and the retail arm of Thai energy giants, PTT. Needless to say, both Visanu and Kong have built up significant personal wealth that far outstrips what they could acquire from their police salaries/pensions, collecting expensive cars, watches, jewelry, weapons, boats, and property. And that’s just what they’ve publicly declared.

In the background to all this are the thousands of victims of the cyber scam operators. As Amnesty International’s recent report, Falling Through the Cracks: Cambodia’s ‘Crackdown’ on Scamming Compounds and the Victims it has Failed, makes clear the cyber scam industry perpetuates gross human rights violations, with confinement, human trafficking, rape, torture and murder all being proven, along with financial crimes being perpetrated against victims in the USA and other wealthier nations. In July 2025, Cambodian PM Hun Manet stated that Cambodian authorities were committed to cracking down on the cyber scam industry and engaged in a number of raids on compounds owned by, among others, Ly Yong Phat.

Which brings us back to another name/face in the photographs alluded to above: Deputy Commissioner General of the Cambodian National Police, Lt. Gen. Sam Vannvirak. Vannvirak is present at both the November 2024 lunch gathering in Bangkok with Rithy Raksmei and the Phnom Penh Hotel soiree with Ly Yong Phat and Visanu. It seems infeasible, given that both Raksmei and Ly Yong Phat’s criminal activities were well-known to the Cambodian police as far back as 2019, that Vannvirak didn’t know who they both were.

The photographs, the official statements, and the publicly available evidence leave a series of troubling and, so far, unanswered questions. They do not, however, amount to definitive proof of wrongdoing on the part of the Thai nationals named in this article.

What they do reveal is a pattern of unexplained associations, inconsistent official accounts and repeated encounters with individuals who, according to US government sanctions and other public reporting, occupied central positions within Cambodia’s cyber scam industry.

That pattern inevitably gives rise to speculation about corruption and collusion — speculation that many observers would argue is not entirely unreasonable given the Royal Thai Police’s long-standing reputation for corruption and Thailand’s recent decline in international corruption rankings.

Thaiscamwatch.blogspot.com has chosen to remain anonymous, saying it is concerned individuals who believe these unanswered questions deserve public scrutiny, and who are committed to exposing organized criminal networks and the corruption that enables them. Asia Sentinel agreed to publish periodic articles from the group.

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The arrest last week of journalist and bookseller Leticia Wong Man-huen on sedition charges brings to at least 29 journalists who have been arrested in Hong Kong since China ordered its sweeping crackdown on the city in 2020. At least nine journalists and press freedom defenders are currently imprisoned, according to data compiled by press freedom organizations, including Jimmy Lai, the founder of the now-defunct Apple Daily, six of his former editors and executives, and additional journalists and editors such as those from Stand News.

Wong, the owner of Hunter Bookstore, was arrested by National Security Police along with an unnamed 32-year-old male, reportedly her husband, according to news reports. Police said Wong, a former Sing Tao Daily political reporter and proprietor of Hunter Bookstore in Sham Shui Po in northwestern Kowloon, had been arrested for displaying items with seditious intent and selling publications that incited hatred against the Hong Kong government, judiciary, and law enforcement agencies.

They were also accused of violating Section 25 of the Organized and Serious Crimes Ordinance for receiving remittances funded by foreign political organizations. Wong and her companion posted bail and were released from Sham Shui Po police station the next day. They must report back to the police on July 24.

In addition to running the bookshop, Wong had been the editor-in-chief of Status Quo, a magazine that features interviews, essays, and reporting on Hong Kong society and culture. Among the allegedly seditious items and books that police seized in Wong’s shop was a copy of “The Troublemaker,” a biography written by former journalist Mark Clifford of Jimmy Lai, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in February 2026, news reports said. Clifford is now president of the New York-based Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, created to work for freedom in and the release of all political prisoners.

“The arrest of a journalist and editor over items sold through an independent bookstore shows Hong Kong authorities are expanding national security laws ever deeper into the city’s publishing sector,” said Asia-Pacific Director Beh Lih Yi of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. “Authorities should immediately release Wong and stop treating publishing activities as threats to national security.”

Beijing imposed the harsh national security law on the city in 2020 after months of virulent anti-government protests over China’s refusal to allow democratic processes to go ahead, as promised in the 1997 agreement between the UK and China that ended colonial rule, ​sparking international criticism that the freedoms promised to the city at the ​handover were being curtailed.

Hardline Hong Kong chief executive John Lee Ka-chiu, a former police commissioner, and authorities in Beijing have ignored demands by the Group of Seven, the European Union, the US State Department, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and a long list of other international critics regarding what they describe as a severe and ongoing deterioration of civil liberties under the sweeping “patriots-only” law. The drumbeat of criticism from overseas has increased over the past couple of years as authorities have begun targeting the families and associates of exiled activists in an attempt to suppress overseas dissent, especially in the UK and the United States, where domestic authorities have arrested Chinese nationals harassing those who have left the onetime British colony.

China consistently ranks as the world’s worst jailer of journalists, with at least 50 behind bars, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. In Hong Kong, despite international complaints, more than 60 organizations including unions, churches, media groups, and political parties, many of them decades old, have been disbanded, according to a study by the independent publication Hong Kong Free Press, which said the trend accelerated in the second half of 2021, with bastions of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement crumbling within months. The New York-based Human Rights Watch put the figure even higher, estimating that more than 100 NGOs, independent media outlets, and labor unions have been forced to disband or relocate entirely, resulting in the establishment of overseas advocacy hubs, adding to Beijing’s irritation.

The crackdown has reduced what was once one of Asia’s most vibrant cities in regard to human rights and protest against the government to sullen conformity, despite upbeat pronunciations by local civic leaders and other boosters. Any criticism of the government, either in the press or among the civic organizations including unions and churches, has simply stopped. The American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong describes public sentiment as “mixed, marked by a contrast between a stabilizing macroeconomic environment and underlying social strain. While many appreciate the city’s strengthened physical security and economic resilience, residents continue to grapple with elevated stress levels and cautious public optimism.”

“For months, authorities waged an administrative campaign against Hunter Bookstore co-owner Leticia Wong, hoping to exhaust her resolve to keep selling books Hong Kongers have a right to read, but the regime would rather they didn’t,” according to a statement by the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong (CFHK) Foundation. “They gave up the death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach and just arrested Wong, a former journalist and Civic Party district councillor, for alleged sedition and money laundering linked to remittances from foreign organizations.”

In a statement to AFP, Clifford said, “When authorities target booksellers for carrying a biography, they’re sending a message that even peaceful ideas and documented facts are no longer safe. A government that fears a book fears the truth.”

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Singaporean authorities are alleging foreign interference in the country’s domestic affairs, stoking racial divisions with South Asians as targets via a China-based platform allegedly sowing racial discord with online subject matter. On June 6, the police announced orders for the disabling of content circulating on YouTube, Facebook, and X “which target the Indian community and undermine Singapore’s model of multiculturalism.”

“Last month, narratives started circulating online in the Chinese information space that Singapore is displaying anxiety over our cultural identity and ethnic politics. Shortly thereafter, online content emerged containing inflammatory narratives about Singapore’s cultural diversity and suggesting that Singapore was being overrun by Indians,” officials disclosed in a press release.

Chinese constitute 75.5 percent of Singapore’s population, while Indians account for 7.6 percent, according to 2025 Singapore government data. Ethnic Malays make up another 15 percent in a balanced racial mix that is closely watched by authorities.

The South Asian community in the city state is long established and highly heterogeneous, encompassing descendants of early migrants from the colonial period as well as more recent expatriates and professionals. Over recent decades, highly skilled professionals from South Asia have relocated to work in IT, finance, and academia, occasionally stirring public debate regarding employment opportunities and population density, bringing to light issues of xenophobia, cultural friction, and housing pressures.

South Indians have historically tended to swing well above their weight in politics, today including Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the country’s current president, K. Shanmugam, coordinating minister for national security and minister for home affairs, Indranee Thurai Rajah, minister in the prime minister’s office, second minister for finance and second minister for national development, and former transport minister S Iswaran, who was jailed on bribery charges in 2024.

In general, race relations are largely peaceful, although deep-seated prejudices and racialization occasionally surface, partly because the island state persists as a predominantly Chinese island in an ethnic Malay sea, and are carefully managed through the government’s aggressive zero-tolerance policy toward any rhetoric that threatens communal stability. State-enforced multiculturalism is administered through a so-called CMIO framework, standing for Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others agenda. Authorities use strict legal structures such as the Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act and the penal code—to swiftly penalize hate speech.

Thus, although the current incident might seem minor to outsiders, Singaporean authorities regard it with concern. Police say the narratives included claims that Singapore’s multiracial policy is a façade meant to appeal to western values, that stability cannot be attributed to its multiracial policy but rather to the fact that the country is majority Chinese, that ethnic Indian politicians act in favor of Indian immigrants, and that its culture is fundamentally Chinese so the government’s approach of “decoupling” itself from China while neglecting the threat of a growing Indian community would lead to a negative outcome.

The Ministry of Home Affairs and police assessed these posts to have violated Singapore laws on racial harmony. Investigations revealed that the content likely originated from a China-based platform, police said. “These are malicious efforts to sow discord by inciting ill-will against the Indian community in Singapore.”

On June 6, Edwin Tong, Singapore’s law minister and second minister for home affairs, clarified there is no evidence to suggest this was a coordinated campaign by any government including the Chinese.

Singapore leaders are at pains to maintain harmonious relations with both China and the US, both of whom are locked in geopolitical competition. China is Singapore’s biggest trading partner, while the US is the city-state’s biggest military partner.

“These videos attack our multi-racial society and they try to divide people based on race. This, however, is not who we are,” Tong told reporters on June 6,

“We don’t tolerate any narratives at all that seek to undermine the racial harmony that we enjoy and that we protect, especially when it is propagated by foreigners, and many of these posts are of foreign origin,” he added.

Singapore Minister for Digital Development and Information Josephine Teo also denounced foreign online content for sowing discord in the multiracial country.

In a Facebook post on June 6, Teo said, “Some videos have been circulating online, targeting our Indian community — one even showed a religious procession at Pagoda Street, implying Indians are not welcome there. This is untrue and unacceptable. These videos did not come from Singapore and do not speak for us. Their intent is to divide,” she added.

Toh Han Shih is a Singaporean writer in Hong Kong. He is a regular contributor to Asia Sentinel.

Prior to a May 1 takeoff for a midnight flight out of San Francisco’s International Airport, by actual count, 61 wheelchair passengers or the people who were pushing them were congregated in a roped-off area waiting to board Philippine Airlines flight 105 for Manila, a Boeing 777-300ER carrying 370 passengers.

After PR 105 landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport 14-1/2 hours later, the scrum of passengers galloping off the plane left just two wheelchair patients aboard. Another half dozen or so sat down in wheelchairs in the jetway and ended up in the baggage area where Philippine airline attendants wrestled their luggage for them.

This is a phenomenon that has become known to flight attendants and ground handlers as “Jetway Jesus” or “miracle flights,” according to a December 18, 2025 Wall Street Journal article complaining that it creates severe delays and leaves passengers with legitimate mobility issues waiting for limited assistance. Those who fly regularly have seen an exponentially growing number of their fellow travelers sitting in wheelchairs. The spike in wheelchair requests has led to up to 80 percent usage on certain flights, according to one study.

But for those in wheelchairs, it guarantees avoidance of notoriously long lines and immigration attended by sour TSA agents, not to mention a first crack at limited overhead bin space aboard, especially for any flight involving Filipinos, who are famous for packing on bags of pasalubongs and other flotsam and jetsam for the folks back home. It’s a chance to get on first, check out the movies on the seat back while the flight attendant strains her back throwing your carry-on baggage into the overhead bin and not have to face the hundreds of passengers stumbling by you. Flying out of Manila, you’re met at the curb by a cheerful numbered staff attendant who handles you all the way through passenger registration, immigration, the waiting area and onto the plane.

For Marites Danguilan Vitug, a Filipino journalist and author, it was a transformative experience. Vitug in March caught herself at a Bangkok International Airport brief layover to find out that the queue to immigration was incredibly long.

“We knew that we couldn’t catch our flight,” she said. “An airport staff told us to proceed to transfer desk 3 for a speedier process. Which meant that we had to walk and run, again, anxiety written on our faces. Two Thai men in white tops and dark pants, apparently their uniform, approached us and asked where we were going. Manila, we said.”

“Mama, Mama, ride here, wheelchair! Your gate is C7, we take you there. You will be on time!”

“I was hesitant. Never have I used a wheelchair in my travels, but we had little choice,” she wrote on Facebook. “Time was running out. The two men zoomed the wheelchairs past the slow-moving queue. ‘Excuse me, excuse me,’ the lead pusher said with a strong sense of urgency, and everyone gave way. And there we were, at the Immigration, in a short queue of passengers on wheelchairs.”

“From there, it only took a few minutes to our gate. I started to get off the wheelchair, but my pusher said to sit down. He wheeled me down the ramp to the waiting area! Whew! The boarding would begin in 5 minutes or so. Thank God for these wheelchair men. We made it.”

For the airlines, it’s a growing nightmare as they face major operational and financial challenges due to the unprecedented surge in requests, stemming from a mix of genuine passenger needs, a growing aging population, and a viral trend of able-bodied travelers faking disabilities to skip security lines, gain priority boarding, and secure better seating. Many airlines express frustration over a rise in what they describe as “shameless line-skipping hacks” where able-bodied travelers request wheelchair assistance to bypass long security and boarding lines.

This sharp increase in wheelchair assistance requests is creating severe logistical and safety strains across the aviation industry. Each wheelchair transport costs airlines between US$30 and US$35 according to an Air India study, which reports handling more than 100,000 assistance requests monthly, leading to severe resource depletion and delayed flights. Airline executives say this severely disadvantages and delays passengers with genuine mobility impairments.

Airlines, according to studies, mishandle an unacceptable number of genuine wheelchairs and mobility scooters. Industry data shows top carriers mishandle or damage more than 1100 wheelchairs annually, a much higher rate of damage than standard checked luggage. In extreme cases, a ruined chair leaves travelers stranded at their destination.

There seems to be little that can be done. Airlines are legally prohibited from capping the number of disabled or incapacitated passengers they carry and certainly not all disabilities are visible. Instead, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) says it is focusing on improving accessibility, standardizing assistance, and accommodating the rising demand through better infrastructure and technology.

Aviation authorities are pushing for solutions ranging from biometric screening to proposing stiff penalties for service abusers, similar to fines for parking in a handicap space, according to the IATA. But for now, as passengers stand in immobile lines awaiting grumpy TSA agents patting them down and demanding their shoes and belts, there’s little that can be done besides standing there and watching the passengers in wheelchairs merrily sailing down the concourse towards their flights -- and meeting them again on landing as they scramble out of the plane with you side by side.

A recent crackdown on an international scam and human trafficking ring in Dubai involving the US and China, Dubai and Thailand may indicate warming relations between the US and China, ahead of US President Donald Trump’s visit to Beijing on May 14 and 15, when he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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On March 26, Vietnamese state media announced that all households in Ho Chi Minh’s Thủ Thiêm New Urban Area had “agreed to move,” accepting compensation and resettlement. Domestic media had already announced that vehicles would be restricted in the area so that undisclosed but urgent construction tasks could be carried out.

However, widely circulated videos on social media tell another story. Streets were blocked by police for days as residents protested against low compensation and the coercive eviction from their land. Livestreamed testimonies said the Internet had been disabled, with electricity and water cut off. Despite resistance, the forced eviction was successful, in a way. After decades of lawsuits, residents lost their land.

The project in the central business area has resulted in the eviction of nearly 15,000 households and the demolition of numerous religious and historic monuments, with little say given to the public.

If ever there was an area ripe for redevelopment, however, it is the Thủ Thiêm ward, a massive 657-hectare horseshoe-shaped peninsula directly across the Saigon River from Ho Chi Minh City’s historic District 1. Envisioned as the “Manhattan of Vietnam,” it is designed to be the city’s new modern financial and cultural hub for the 21st century.

Unfortunately, the Thủ Thiêm ward had a thriving population who had lived there perhaps for centuries. 14 to 15,000 households have already been ousted, with 5,000-odd still left. The area is designed to eventually accommodate roughly 130,000 to 145,400 permanent residents once completed, as well as over 217,000 regular employees and up to a million visitors during peak events.

As the country undergoes rapid development, land disputes have increased nationwide. Cases of forced land seizures have been reported across the country. What is presented as compliance is often driven by coercion rather than genuine consensus.

Opposition costs too high

The heavy police presence in Thủ Thiêm evokes painful memories of the deadly, long-running land dispute in Đồng Tâm commune on the outskirts of Hanoi. On Jan. 9, 2020, thousands of police entered the commune and clashes erupted, killing three policemen and a civilian, Lê Đình Kình, a veteran, former local official, Communist Party member, and leading protest figure. He had become a spiritual leader and vowed to defend what villagers considered their ancestral land, but which the government designated as public land for state-defined purposes.

That tragedy demonstrated that earlier promises of dialogue between the state and affected communities were hollow. Under Party General Secretary and President Tô Lâm, the Ministry of Public Security has become unprecedentedly powerful. Four out of 19 Politburo members, including Tô Lâm, have police backgrounds.

Vietnam’s 2013 Constitution says land is collectively owned by the people and administered by the state. In practice, however, this framework – combined with inconsistent and often lax management by local authorities – has created fertile ground for disputes, particularly in cases where historical land-use rights are ambiguous.

In practice, compensation is typically limited to land formally recognized by land-use rights certificates and remains subject to interpretation by local authorities. The amended 2024 Land Law introduced no fundamental change. Land, in effect, remains under state control, with authorities retaining broad powers to reclaim or lease it for self-styled socio-economic development or national defense purposes.

As a result, even those holding land-use rights certificates often find themselves in a precarious position, effectively tenants on their own land, paying taxes on property that can be seized at any time.

It is now common in Hanoi to see large groups of landowners gathered at the central offices of the Communist Party of Vietnam to demand justice. Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City stand out as cities where citizens have been openly dissatisfied with below-market compensation for land confiscation.

Disciplining leaders does not mean justice for victims

The municipal People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City has publicly apologized to local residents for shortcomings in the Thủ Thiêm project, acknowledging that it had not “followed what was approved,” particularly in relation to households on approximately 4.3 hectares outside the planning zone. However, the apology didn’t translate into any meaningful redress.

In 2020, government officials in Ho Chi Minh City faced charges for land mismanagement in a massive urban development project that led to the confiscation of land rights for 15,000 people. Lê Thanh Hải, a former member of the Politburo and former Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, was expelled from the Communist Party. But this did not necessarily mean that justice would be served for the affected citizens.

Thủ Thiêm residents may feel an even deeper sense of injustice. Under the former South Vietnamese regime (1955–1975), citizens were allowed to own land. Private land ownership formally remained in place until 1980, when the new Constitution abolished the right to private land ownership in a unified Vietnam.

Last December, at a national conference reviewing anti-corruption, anti-wastefulness and anti-negativity efforts during the term of the Party’s 13th National Congress, Tô Lâm said that 80-90 percent of misconduct cases lodged against officials were related to land, which speaks volumes about discontent over land issues.

Yet Tô Lâm is also known for championing fast GDP-centric economic growth. Modernization has been equated with mushrooming real estate projects. According to state media, the state is building the largest plaza in Vietnam in Thủ Thiêm, which is to become a landmark of modern Ho Chi Minh City. Yet for thousands of residents, modernization has carried profound and often overlooked costs – chronic insecurity, fractured communities, lost livelihoods and a generation left behind.

Also, the police under Tô Lâm are major law-makers. Last December, in a draft decree on integrating security with socio-economic development, the Ministry of Public Security proposed participating in reviewing national master plans, national land-use planning, socio-economic development plans, and even medium-term and annual public investment plans.

More violence to come

The 2020 violence of the Đồng Tâm clash extended far beyond the death of the spiritual leader Lê Đình Kình. His two sons were sentenced to death, and his grandson received a life sentence, all on murder charges, even though they had been attacked by the police. Several villagers, including Lê Đình Kình’s adopted daughter, were given prison terms of between 12 and 15 years, while others received shorter sentences for “resisting law enforcement officers.”

As of now, local police have reportedly refused to issue a death certificate for Lê Đình Kình on the grounds that his wife must state that he died in the field, not at home. As a result, he has been denied even official recognition of being killed.

The government has branded those who suffered in Đồng Tâm as terrorists and rioters, and forced arrested villagers to confess their alleged crimes on TV. Domestic media accused them of receiving external funding and direction from exiled opposition groups that the government labels terrorist organizations.

Human rights defenders who advocated in the case have also paid a high price. Before rising to the top post, Tô Lâm headed the Ministry of Public Security from 2016 to 2024. As of 2026, he has put more than 70 independent journalists in prison.

To pay respects to Lê Đình Kình and support the residents of Đồng Tâm, activist Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh raised funds on social media platforms. Around $20,000 in local currency was contributed by people across the country. Shortly after, the Ministry of Public Security subsequently froze the bank account, and the funds remain inaccessible.

In April 2021, Nguyễn Thúy Hạnh was sentenced to three and a half years in prison on the concocted charge of “making, storing, or spreading information, materials or items for the purpose of opposing the State of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam.” Such charges were also brought against the family of prominent land-rights defender Cấn Thị Thêu and her two sons for disseminating information about the Đồng Tâm incident on social media. The three were sentenced to a total of 37 years in prison.

People in Thủ Thiêm are aware of the possible consequences, yet being homeless and jobless on their own land after decades of hard work and hardship leaves many with nothing more to lose.

On several streets in the Thủ Thiêm area, signs of protest remain. Hopefully, the history of Đồng Tâm won’t repeat itself. It is not only a story of the past, but also a test of the future. Monetary compensation could be paid, but public trust has already been lost.

The author’s name is being withheld out of concern for prosecution by the Vietnamese government.

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On April 12, a 53-year-old construction worker named Jhony Lanquino was trying to beat the 38-degree heat by shedding his tee-shirt while mixing cement outside his home in Mandaluyong City in the Manila national capital region when he was surrounded by barangay officials and police officers including SWAT members trained for high-risk operations.

Lanquino was fined ₱500 (US8.33) for violating a local ordinance on public decency by being shirtless, although two days later, Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla descended on Lanquino at home and personally apologized, returning the ₱500 fine amid public outcry and acknowledging lapses in the initial implementation of his “Safer Metro Manila Plan,” also called the “Safer Cities” initiative.

Jonvic, suspected of being the Marcos camp’s candidate to take on Sara Duterte in the 2028 presidential sweepstakes, rolled out the plan on April 6 with the fanfare of a national event to take on one of the world’s most chaotic, polluted, traffic-choked, slum-ridden cities, which for decades has cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it.

While designed to instill discipline, Remulla’s drive has faced criticism for allegedly targeting poor individuals, leading to calls for better police discretion, compassion and refinement in its implementation. Over 72,000 individuals were flagged in Metro Manila alone within the first 10 days, with a daily average of 6,000–7,000 apprehensions.

If there is a certain nostalgia, a balik-tanaw spreading in Metro Manila, something people here have seen before, it is justified. Manila saw it under Imelda Marcos, then first lady, governor of Metro Manila and minister for human settlements and mother of the current President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. She was nicknamed the Steel Butterfly, sometimes the Iron Butterfly for her unique combination of fragile beauty, lavish lifestyle and iron-fisted, unyielding political ambition.

Appointed governor of Metro Manila (1975–1986) by her strongman husband Ferdinand Marcos Sr, she led the Manila Cleanup Crusade” to polish the city’s streets, waterways and public spaces in preparation for major international events, a failing effort to put a shine on the chaotic conurbation of 15 cities, suburbs and slums into a “City of Man” including construction of the Cultural Center of the Philippines and a “Great Wall of Manila” to hide poverty-stricken slums behind white walls from the view of visiting foreign dignitaries.

Alas, Manila, often noted for its high levels of happiness and contentment, cheerfully resisted all attempts to redeem or reform it, lost as she focused on aesthetics to mask deep-seated social issues and ignoring actual sanitation and welfare needs.

Remulla’s new attempt, led by his Department of the Interior and Local Government and the Philippine National Police, aims to bridge the gap between crime statistics and the public’s sense of security through high-visibility policing and strict enforcement of “quality-of-life” ordinances. In short, make police more visible and streets more orderly to fix the feeling of insecurity. His modern echo, flagging shirtless workers and shutting down late-night karaoke parlors amid public outcry, is driven by the Philippines’ hosting the ASEAN Summit. Once again, Manila is being dressed up for the world, and poverty is treated as a public relations problem.

After his apology to Lanquino, he insisted that his initiative would be strictly enforced, albeit with clearer guidelines. Men going shirtless without practical reasons will be fined, he said, even in secluded alleys.

“Working shirtless men are allowed,” Remulla told the Manila Bulletin. “But those just hanging out topless outside, walking that’s prohibited.’’ However, he said, “anything goes, even shirtless men roaming the streets may be allowed during special celebrations like fiestas, as long as no troubles or violent incidents transpire during these festivities.

Where Imelda reshaped what people saw, this policy targets how people behave, which immediately has drawn condemnation from progressive and human rights groups, describing it misdirected and a crackdown against the poor. Critics say the pattern is clear. The plan’s visible targets are not major criminals but minor violations: public drinking, curfew breaches, noise complaints, and “indecent exposure.”

“This is not about safety,” said Secretary General Cristina Palaba of the human rights NGO Karapatan. “This is a crackdown on the poor, plain and simple. We have seen this before. Thousands were rounded up in the name of ‘order,’ yet nothing changed for the better in the lives of the people. Instead, the poor were harassed, detained, some of them even get killed in these operations.”

The irony is hard to miss. In a city where trillion-peso flood control projects disappear into the ether and high-profile fugitives slip through international borders with the grace of Olympic gymnasts, enforcement zeroes in on small, visible offenses. It’s easier to police behavior than dismantle systems that make the city unsafe.

Much like Imelda’s rush to hide “eyesores” before international conferences and beauty pageants, Remulla’s initiative seems less about long-term crime reduction and more about presenting a sanitized, “disciplined” facade to ASEAN delegates.

Enforcement also reveals a class divide. Shirtless laborers are fined, but joggers in gated villages are not. Curfews apply in poorer districts, while nightlife districts run late. Order, it seems, depends on where you live.

The Interior Department plans to expand the program to other cities after its Metro Manila pilot. As it does, the question becomes clearer: do we want a city that is truly safe, or one that simply looks orderly? Until deeper inequalities are addressed, these patrols risk becoming little more than performance—highly visible, tightly enforced, and aimed at those with the least power to resist.

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The Indian government is faced with the monumental task of ensuring functional, gender-segregated toilets in all schools and distributing free, biodegradable sanitary pads via vending machines for millions of girls in the wake of a January 30 landmark judgment by the Supreme Court of India declaring menstrual health an integral component of individual fundamental rights.

The ruling moves menstrual hygiene from a welfare scheme to an enforceable right, targeting the reduction of school dropout rates and enhancing gender equality. The Court announced it would follow up after three months to determine how well the mandates have been implemented, which makes India the only country in the world to mandate such a constitutional guarantee.

Equally important toilet scheme

The decision dovetails with an equally important scheme launched in 2014, officially known as the Swachh Bharat Mission or toilet scheme, that could do more than almost anything to cement Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s place in Indian history. It has provided for some of the most basic human sanitation needs for hundreds of millions of poverty-stricken Indians, emphasizing sustainable sanitation, solid waste management, and the construction of new toilets to meet growing demand.

The Swachh Bharat Mission has facilitated the construction of more than 120 million household toilets across India by last September, significantly increasing sanitation access with more than 110 million of them built in rural areas. The scheme in rural India has been of enormous significance for women, not only for dignity and hygiene but by reducing the risk of sexual assault and disease. Previously, more than 70 percent of sexual assaults in some areas occurred when women left home for bowel movements, often at night.

Lack of essential hygiene sparks dropouts

Some 23 million girls drop out of school annually in India due to a lack of proper menstrual hygiene management facilities, including toilets and sanitary products. Nearly 60 percent of girls skip school during their menstrual cycle, with 70 percent unable to afford sanitary pads. The lack of affordable disposable pads causes menstruating girls to use newspaper, old rags, sponges and dried leaves despite the 2011 launch of the Menstrual Hygiene Scheme (MHS) by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, a landmark attempt to destigmatize menstruation at a national level, by targeting adolescent girls aged 10–19 with subsidized sanitary pads and menstrual education.

The court’s 127-page judgment mandates all Indian states and union territories to ensure that proper sanitation is essential for dignity and bodily autonomy, not just charity. All public and private schools must install vending machines for eco-friendly sanitary pads and provide, at minimum, “Menstrual Hygiene Management (MHM) corners” in schools, equipped with spare uniforms, underwear and waste disposal systems including soap and disposal bags to ensure the provision of functional, accessible, and gender-segregated toilets in every school with usable water and handwashing facilities and safe environmentally compliant mechanisms for their disposable. It requires integration of gender-responsive education on menstruation and related health concerns into school curricula to break the stigma around puberty and menstruation.

“Despite some progress, menstrual hygiene discourse in India has not been discussed vocally as a fundamental right,” said activist Debanjana Choudhuri. “Onset of menstruation leads to irregular school attendance. Inadequate toilet facilities, lack of privacy, unavailability of sanitary products and fear of embarrassment compel many girl students to remain absent during their menstrual cycle. This has a huge impact on her life choices, economic freedom and her dignity. What begins as a temporary absence frequently develops into an academic difficulty and, in several cases, results in discontinuation of education. She just simply stops going to school.”

“When girls are forced to sacrifice their education or dignity due to biological realities, the harm is constitutional in nature. When a society allows this harm to happen then we fail as a society collectively. If this happens because of stigma or taboo for menstruation, then we have completely failed despite all the years of advocacy and activism in India for gender rights,” said Debanjana Choudhuri, a gender justice activist, emphasizing that the Supreme Court decision on menstruation talks about living with dignity.

There are also the needs of out-of-school adolescents, many of whom belong to the most marginalized communities in India, or those who drop out of school due to early marriage or some other social reason. They also need equal access to menstrual hygiene interventions, as those in formal education. Civil society, communities, and policymakers will be called upon to work together to achieve success.

Global problem as well

The problem is not confined to India. Even in wealthy countries including the US, one in five teens as well as homeless, low-income, and/or imprisoned women struggle to afford products, with four in five missing some class time, according to a 2023 World Bank study. A new report launched by UNICEF and the World Health Organization analyzes for the first time emerging national data on menstrual health and hygiene in schools globally. The report underscores the urgent need for global action to improve menstrual health and hygiene in schools.

Globally, more than 500 million women lack access to adequate menstrual products and sanitation facilities. Use of sanitary pads leads to a significant reduction in sexually transmitted infections and bacterial vaginosis. Poor menstrual hygiene can pose serious health risks, like reproductive and urinary tract infections. Promoting menstrual health and hygiene is an important means for safeguarding women’s dignity, privacy, bodily integrity, and, consequently, their self-efficacy.

Studies show that menstruation-related stigma and discrimination remain widespread. It is often fuelled by harmful social norms and cultural taboos around menstruation. In some parts of the world, even today, menstruating girls and women are seen as dirty or untouchable, restricting their movement and access to spaces. Myths include that menstruating women and girls should not touch certain food, or it would rot, or enter places of worship as they are unclean, and that they should be isolated.

Shobha Shukla is the award-winning founding Managing Editor and Executive Director of Citizen News Service (CNS). Follow her on X or read her writings here. Shared under Creative Commons (CC)