Woman’s Pride Flag Ripped Down From Window Twice By Vandals On 29 Jun
Over the years, Singapore has progressed as a nation on many fronts, including greater acceptance of diversity, races, and sexual orientation.
But a recent string of discriminatory incidents has shown us that we still have much to work on as a country.
On 29 Jun, a woman shared on Instagram that when she hung her pride flag on her window, it got ripped off her window by some vandals.
Prior to that, the police also stopped by to advise the woman about the flag after receiving a complaint.
It’s not known currently if the 2 incidents are related, but police are now investigating the act of vandalism.
Police advise woman about pride flag after complaint
The incidents began on 21 Jun, according to LGBT+ media site Dear Straight People.
To celebrate Pride Month, the lady put up the pride flag on her window on 1 Jun.
Image courtesy of woman
However, on 21 Jun, police turned up at her doorstep, informing her that they received a complaint about the flag and were there to advise her about it.
Bewildered, she asked if she had done anything illegal.
The police assured her she had not but insisted on advising her that she could take the flag down if she wished to.
When she flipped the question and asked if the police could advise the person who lodged the complaint instead, they said they were not able to do so.
They then took down details like her name and NRIC number before leaving.
The incident left her feeling sick.
Speaking with MS News, she shared that couldn’t wrap her head around why she or her family had to go through such a stressful experience without doing anything wrong.
Pride flag ripped from her window twice
Unfortunately, things did not end there.
On Tuesday (29 Jun), the lady was working from home when she was startled by a loud bang on her window.
She discovered that some vandals had violently yanked the pride flag off her window before running away.
Shocked, she didn’t manage to catch sight of the culprits but put the flag back up.
Just moments later, however, it was ripped from her window again.
Image courtesy of woman
And this time, the culprits used so much force that her windows shook from the impact.
The incident also left her family feeling nervous about the culprits returning.
Hope police can handle matter better
After the incident, she had to take some time to process what just happened.
Image courtesy of woman
Reflecting on it, she said that the sad truth was that as a 33-year-old queer brown woman, she has been desensitised from such hateful acts.
Deciding that she was not going to let such things get to her, she put the flag back up again.
In fact, she doubled down by also buying a progress pride flag to put on her front door.
She shared in another Instagram story that she does not hold anger towards the person who filed the complaint but hopes that authorities could have dealt with it better.
Image courtesy of woman
Speaking to MS News, the lady shared that the police have now contacted her and informed her they are looking into the incident.
Hope police will get to the bottom of things
While there’s no denying that Singapore has a long way to go when it comes to accepting the LGBTQ+ community, it is saddening that anyone would feel the need to forcefully show such displeasure.
As the police said, hanging a Pride flag is in no way illegal and doesn’t merit investigations. But the subsequent incident – ripping off the flag – is in fact an attack.
We hope the police will eventually get to the bottom of this and bring justice to the lady at the end of the day.
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Featured image courtesy of woman.
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