SINGAPORE: A proposed law on foreign interference has a proportionality requirement, contrary to comments by a senior lawyer, the Ministry of Home Affairs said on Sunday .
In his opinion piece, Mr Singh stated that the Bill's definitions of"foreign interference" and"public interest" are so broad that legitimate online activity undertaken by Singaporeans to influence the country's laws and public policies may be subject to a direction by the minister against them, even in the absence of any manipulation or influence by a foreign government or its agents.
Friday's editorial, titled"FICA’s threat to Singapore academia", was signed off by four academics: Dr Cherian George, a media studies professor at Hong Kong Baptist University; Associate Professor Chong Ja Ian of the National University of Singapore’s Department of Political Science; economist Linda Lim and Associate Professor of Sociology Teo You Yenn of Nanyang Technological University.
"Universities play a valuable role in research as well as in educating the public about malign forms of foreign interference. Stifling them may inadvertently make Singapore more, not less, vulnerable to foreign manipulation."Facebook agrees with Singapore Government on tackling foreign interference, but says proposed law worded 'very broadly'
"FICA would only apply if the Singaporean academic in each of these instances were acting on behalf of a foreign agency to conduct a hostile information campaign online directed against Singapore’s public interest – e.g., to create discord and unrest among Singaporeans," said the ministry.
So China students studying in Singapore who promote CCP narrative as wumaos to Singaporeans should be prosecuted under the new law, right?
Evidently nobody knows what foreign influence actually is, including the people who wrote this law. If my non-Singaporean friend show me something nice on Shopee and I buy it, is it foreign influence? FICA