Singapore has deported a Hong Kong YouTuber for organizing a small gathering to discuss the protests convulsing his home city in violation of public assembly laws, police said Thursday.
The city-state’s elite are increasingly nervous about the unrest in rival financial hub Hong Kong, observers say, as they fear it could inspire demonstrations in the tightly controlled city-state, where protests are rare.
Police launched a probe after Alex Yeung, a pro-Beijing restaurateur known for his anti-protest tirades on YouTube, organized the gathering last month in a bar with a handful of people, mostly Hongkongers.
Organizing a public assembly without a police permit in Singapore is punishable by a fine of up to S$5,000 (about US$3,670). Repeat offenders can be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed for a maximum of six months or both.
But after wrapping up their probe, police decided to merely give Yeung a warning and send him back to Hong Kong.
“Singapore has always been clear that foreigners should not advocate their political causes in Singapore, through public assemblies, and other prohibited means,” a police statement said.
In a video posted after police launched a probe, Yeung had accused supporters of the protests of setting him up at the gathering.
In one video, apparently taken at Singapore’s Jewel Changi Airport on his way out of the country, Yeung noted that he had not been convicted of a crime, and thanked the Singaporean police, saying Singapore was a “civilized country with good law and order.”
Yeung wasn’t the first Hongkonger to irk Singaporean authorities. Way back in 2016, prominent pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong similarly made a splash by appearing via Skype at a talk in Singapore on the subject of civil disobedience. The organizer of the assembly, Singaporean activist Jolovan Wham, was ultimately slapped with a S$3,200 (about US$2,350) fine.
Hong Kong has been shaken by nearly six months of increasingly violent demonstrations, with protesters calling for greater democratic freedoms and police accountability.
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said last month that the country would be “finished” if similar protests erupted there.
“It will become impossible to govern Singapore, to make and carry out difficult decisions or to plan for the long-term good of the nation,” he said.
Additional reporting by Coconuts HK.
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