Strictly Singapore!

When the call for an Occupy Raffles Place campaign, on the lines of the Occupy Wall Street protests raging across the United States, went out in Singapore late last week, the city-state’s police immediately sent out a terse warning that any such demonstration would be illegal without a prior permit, according to the Republic’s strict laws about such gatherings. Not only did the campaign’s Facebook group, which had over 7,000 members on Friday night, mysteriously disappear the next day, at the appointed time and place – 2 p m on Saturday, October 16, in the heart of Singapore’s Central Business District – there seemed to be more police and journalists than demonstrators. In fact, it’s difficult to ascertain if any bona fide protesters turned up at all.