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This year’s Pink Dot LGBT rally in Singapore is only allowing citizens and permanent residents of Singapore to attend due to legal changes.
Event organizers announced the restriction with ‘profound regret’, saying that they have been reminded of the new rules, which is that only Singaporean citizens and permanent residents could participate in assemblies at Speakers' Corner that do not have a permit.
According to the newly released Singapore's Public Order Act, Pink Dot said, "the law no longer distinguishes between participants and observers, and regards anyone who turns up to the Speakers' Corner in support of an event to be part of an assembly", which means that although only local residents are allowed to actively ‘demonstrate’ by holding up placards, previously foreigners still have been able to attend the event, Pink Dot says.
As gay sex is still illegal in Singapore, the Pink Dot rally has had a clear political agenda and has been held annually since 2009 in the country's Speakers' Corner, where demonstrations are allowed without a police permit, in order to demonstrate gay rights in public.
The new act will stop about a quarter of Singaporean joining relevant demonstration, as about 30 percent of Singapore's population are neither citizens nor permanent residents.
"It has been the government's longstanding position that foreigners and foreign entities should not import foreign politics into Singapore; nor should they interfere in our domestic issues, especially those of a political or controversial nature," K Shanmugram, Singapore's Home Affairs and Law Minister said.
After Singapore's government barred foreign firms from sponsoring events at Speakers' Corner without a permit last year, the new rules can be seen as the latest setback for Pink Dot group.
(CGTN)
