Along with a team of activists, he went door-to-door to distribute flyers informing residents about the AHPETC issue. Lye stated that these flyers were “facts of the matter”.
Now we’re not discrediting the very noble intention of Lye and his team to bring greater awareness of this issue to the Aljunied residents. But was what Victor Lye and team did legal?
The problem
We take a journey back seven years ago to 2008. Five or more members of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) had then distributed flyers without a permit and hence, contravened Rule 5 of the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order & Nuisance) (Assemblies & Processions) Act…
…and got slapped with a one-week jail sentence. They were found guilty on two points: the first being that they had no permit even though five or more people were involved, and the second being that the flyers contained information in “opposition to the actions of the Government”.
The similarities between the two cases raise some questions. With regards to the first charge of needing a permit, Victor Lye’s selfie clearly show more than five people present. One old man is partially hidden, so you might need to squint a little harder to count seven people in total.
On the second charge of distributing flyers that opposed the actions of the government, the two cases are also similar. The flyer that resulted in jail terms for the SDP members read:
The SDP flyer was deemed to be political as it demonstrated “opposition to the actions of the government”. The PAP flyer opposed the actions of the Workers’ Party, who also form a rightful part of the government. Can the PAP flyers hence be considered as an opposition to the government too?
Kenneth Jeyaretnam is the leader of opposition political party the Reform Party. As of now, Victor Lye has yet to reply.
A move gone wrong
From just a brief glance of the comments on Victor Lye’s post, the negativity of the general sentiment is painfully obvious. One netizen even asked the PAP to “fix ur [your] own issues first before barking at others”.
In the meantime, why waste the precious paper the flyers were printed on?