RSF requests Singapore to end blocking of Asia Sentinel website

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) requested the Singaporean government stop blocking access to Asia Sentinel, an independent website based in California that specializes in reporting on Asia. This website has been blocked by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), a Singapore government agency, throughout the city-state since 2 June.

The website is being accused of not following a correction instruction issued by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore. The instruction was related to an article published on 24 May, titled “Singapore kills a Chicken to Scare the Monkeys.” The article referred to a Chinese proverb that describes intimidation techniques, including those used to intimidate the media. The Ministry for Home Affairs claims that the article contained numerous falsehoods and demanded a correction under Singapore’s Prevention from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), a 2019 law that the RSF highly criticizes due to its arbitrary nature.

RSF checked the author’s sources and confirmed the accuracy of the claims in the article, thus requesting Singapore to end the arbitrary blockage of access. Additionally, RSF stated that POFMA is created to quash any ‘misleading’ or ‘false’ information by compelling sites to place a ‘correction’ over the story in question and then to ‘correct’ within the story any statements the government disapproves of.