Singapore Democrats
It has been reported that a newspaper photographer has been handcuffed and briefly detained because he was taking photographs of the flood this morning. Obviously the repeated and widespread flooding is making the Government anxious and it is irrationally trying to prevent pictures from being taken.
With heavy showers coming on this morning, many areas which hitherto were not affected started to flood. Places in the east such as Changi Road and Telok Kurau came under water as did Bukit timah and Orchard again.
Police had ordered Lianhe Wanbao‘s photojournalist Mr Wu to leave the scene when he was taking pictures of the flooded area. When he asked to be able to continue his work, an officer abruptly handcuffed him and detained him.
What law did the photographer break? Was he interfering with police work? Was there a security issue that caused him to be arrested?
These are questions that the police must answer. If they cannot provide a satisfactory explanation, then they must apologise unreservedly and assure the public that police officers will not abuse their powers and threaten journalists and members of the public willy-nilly.
As flooding becomes regular occurences fare in Singapore, Singaporeans must be able to report and take pictures wherever they happen. This is the only way to refute PAP bombast that floods happen only once every 50 years or that debris clogging drains are the cause.
The Government must tell the public the truth which is that the infrastructural planning has been a dismal failure, apologise for it without any ifs, ands or buts, and then lay out plans to rectify the problem.