Following the Little India riot, the Police have basically concluded investigations and released the following description of what the next steps will be:
http://www.todayonline.com/singapore/little-india-riot-police-substantially-complete-investigations
Essentially 28 persons have been charged with rioting, 200 were given 'advisories' and 53 were given warnings in lieu of prosecution and will be deported. There is no dispute with the 28 being charged but some have questioned the 'advisories' and the 53 who were deported 'without due' process.
Just because he runs NGOs for the plight of migrant workers here, should not mean Mr Jolovan Wham (a) should take it upon himself to champion the cause of each and every worker under investigation.
Jolovan Wham who runs NGOs for the plight of abused foreign workers, issued the following statement in regards to the matter:
I agree in essence with the 1st part of his statement in relation to reports of assault by some of the 28 accused while in custody by the police. He also expressed concern that the alleged assault took place in an area with no video cameras - the interrogation rooms. This is something I touched on in an earlier post. That the police can install 25 new cameras in the aftermath of the riot but still refuse to have a video camera in the 6 police stations and CID interrogation rooms is plainly inexcusable. A cctv at the very least will lend credence whether the allegations of assault were false. A full video with sound would once and for all determine whether any form of threat, coercion or violence was used in the recording of statements and interrogations.
The IPCC was set up in the UK to investigate allegations of serious abuse by police officers including assaults on accused persons.
I also agree with Mr Wham that an independent body should be empaneled to look into allegations of abuse by the police. In fact the UK has an independent body that looks into allegations made against the Police, there's no reason why we shouldn't have one here. However until such a body is set up we must make do with we have here, and here's where I disagree with Mr Wham. He infers that just because the Judge asked the Prosecution to investigate the allegations, it should be an inference that the Prosecution - ie; the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) would be in collusion with any police officer that carried out the assault. It also follows that the whole SPF would be involved in a cover up, that every officer who as a matter of course investigates these allegations, would look the other way if it was indeed proven.
Does this mean the allegations are totally unfounded? Well honestly, I don't know and we will have to wait for the findings into the allegations. If the medical officers whom these persons were referred to cannot find evidence, that would prove that no serious assault took place. However it won't be able to say for certain, that no minor assault like a slap, a deprivation of sleep or threat took place and so forth. But it does not mean that it did take place either. The best solution would of course be to ensure that all these allegations should be able to be proven one way or the other - with the introduction of cameras in all police dealings with accused persons.
The Legal Service Commission of the AGC, from whose ranks DPPs come from. Would it be fair to assume that all these officers will turn a blind eye to police brutality which could seriously derail the prosecution's case?
But it's unfair to allude that the Prosecution and every police officer including the senior management would be in collusion to cover-up any trace of assault. I've been critical of the police in some of my earlier posts, but I honestly don't think that every police officer who has taken an oath would turn the other way if they found out that such assaults took place. I believe there are enough, if not a lot of good police officers, who would stomach such dastardly acts and not come forward to report it. And I am positive that the DPPs assigned to the case, who are not part of the police in any way (but rather an overseer of police investigations), would not be slow in prosecuting police officers who engage in violence to accused persons.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in the US, routinely deports undesirables in lieu of prosecution without reference to a judicial hearing.
Mr Wham was wrong in that inference and he's definitely wrong with the rest of his statement regarding the denial of due process by the 'arbitrary deportation' as he puts it. It's trite international law that every country reserves the right to determine the presence or removal of any foreign national in their respective countries. Any country even those in western democracies have the absolute right to declare any foreigner 'persona non grata' and order their immediate removal or deportation. There's nothing about due process, any country can order such a removal provided that such removal would not mean that a return to a person's country of origin, will result in the torture or threat of injury or death to that person. There's no question that these 53 will be subject to such conditions upon return to India.
Of course, some will deny involvement, some will say the Police forced them to admit - you can take both views here - a) few guilty persons will admit their faults or b) their statements were true. But all that is irrelevant - Singapore has a right to refuse stay or admission of anyone it deems undesirable. The Police would not have acted arbitrarily but in consultation with the AGC. For example, if you're dissatisfied with your foreign worker or maid, can you cancel their work permits? Of course you can. Do you have to give a reason? Yes. Can they seek a court order to force you to change your decision once the Comptroller of Work Permits rules in your favour? Of course not. Once you apply to cancel and the Work Permit Department accedes to your request, their permits are cancelled and they have to leave the country. The Police have done the same thing here, they have provided a reason to the AGC and the Comptroller that these workers are undesirable for their presence during the riots and have requested their removal following the issuance of a warning.
A Prisons' bus leaving with some of the accused charged in court. The 53 not charged would have breathed a sigh of relief they did not suffer the same fate.
Of course, one can have fanciful ideas that the Police simply plucked 53 persons from thin air, declared them involved passively in the riot and then in a cover-up moved to have them removed. No one can stop you from forming whatever view you want, but the key question is whether a reasonable person exercising sound judgment would believe so? That the whole Police Force all the way up to the Commissioner and the AGC - not forgetting the Ministers overseeing the Police and Comptroller, would all be in collusion to have these 53 'innocent persons' removed. That would mean all the statements were false, not just by them, but by witnesses, the video evidence garnered at the scene, all were swept under the carpet to reach this determination. If you stopped to think about this conspiracy theory, then you will realise that the scale of it would be of enormous proportions, involving dozens if not hundreds of people and public servants, all of whom must be in collusion. Is this reasonable? Go figure. And which do you think these 53 would have preferred? Being charged, convicted, jailed and then deported, or just deported with a warning?
The UK riots of 2011, involved thousands of youths across several cities. The various police forces in the country could not catch and prosecute a large number of them even with advances in technology.
It's easy to cast allegations or to make arbitrary statements and to quote lofty terms like due process. But people also must realise the scale of the investigations. There were supposedly 400 people involved. Is it possible to hunt down all 400? Maybe if you watch CSI or other crime shows, yes it's possible, but in real life it doesn't work that way. I can safely say, and maybe the police will dare to admit, that some persons involved in the riot even in an aggressive manner, will somehow escape arrest and prosecution. If they were smart enough to do the act and leave the scene without being spotted by anyone who knew them and left nothing behind that can be traced to them, how would any police force in the world be able to identify them? Of course only 28 face charges, but 253 others were also identified in one way or the other of being present and involved in varying degrees. This is not a bad return. Even if you look at top police forces in the world that have had to deal with riots like the LAPD and Scotland Yard - they too were not able to catch everyone involved in the riots in their cities. They too did not prosecute everyone they interviewed or arrested. The SPF may not have performed well in the lead-up or during the riot - if you take that view (which I do), but they did not perform too badly in the aftermath.
Would it be better to have given these 53 'due process' as Mr Wham wants? It would cost the taxpayers a lot to house them, to prosecute them and then in the end, do the very thing being done - deport them. If there was no solid evidence in the first place to prosecute, how can there be solid evidence in whatever future hearing? What more due process is there to be had, except make a simple determination - do we want to allow these persons to work and remain here, or send them back? If you were in a position of authority, what would your decision be? Would it be to 'flog a dead horse and have further investigative and judicial processes that would almost certainly bring you back to square 1' or would you take the option the AGC, Comptroller and Police took?
The boorish behaviour of this Australian cyclist outside Vivo City and the Caribbean Condominium should not be tolerated and he too should be declared an undesirable and deported.
I would always choose the latter, in fact my only complaint about this deportation process, is that the Police while moving fast here to have these undesirable persons deported, have not been similarly fast to remove other foreigners who have committed crimes or other boorish acts. Whether it be bankers assaulting taxi drivers, bar room brawls by drunken expatriates or even the disgusting behaviour by the Australian cyclist at Vivo City, once a foreigner commits an act unbecoming of our expectations and laws, he or she should similarly become 'persona non grata.' There is no need for further explanations or due process, please remove anyone regardless or nationality or position that does so. That would be the one act that the Police can do to restore greater faith in the deportation process.
Anyhow Hamtam
*The author blogs at http://anyhowhantam.blogspot.sg