Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam has weighed in on an article published on anti-PAP website, the States Times Review, on 5 November 2018, which made statements that were false and malicious, and impugned the integrity of MAS as a financial regulator.
The article titled “Lee Hsien Loong becomes 1MDB’s key investigation target” alleged that Malaysia had signed several unfair agreements with Singapore, in exchange for Singapore banks’ assistance in laundering 1MDB’s funds. The article is baseless and defamatory.
Shanmugam has since called the comments made in the article against Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and the Government “absurd”, as he asserted that the authorities will take action against all involved based on investigations and advice from the Attorney-General’s Chambers.
The Law Minister told the press: “When you make allegations of corruption, money laundering against the Prime Minister, Government of Singapore that we are complicit in this and so on, we’ll take this very seriously.”
Shanmugam’s comments come after Singapore’s central bank, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), filed a police report over the defamatory article.
According to Alex Tan, the founder of the States Times Review, the Infocommunications Media Development Authority (IMDA) has also sent him a notice to remove the defamatory article from his website.
The IMDA asked Tan to take down the article by 5pm today and warned him against publishing their confidential notice to him in the public domain since this would be considered an “aggravating factor warranting further regulatory action from IMDA.”
Refusing to abide by the warnings, Tan defiantly shared on social media that he sent this response to the IMDA:
“The website will refuse to bow down to the dictatorship’s draconian censorship order or accept any arbitrary order naming any content as “fake news”. I will wear the ban and the falsified charges as a badge of honour.
“Singaporeans should not be afraid of the truth or impugn their integrity bowing to legalised corruptions and threats.”
Tan, who runs his website from Australia, added on Facebook: “States Times Review will refuse to remove the alleged offending article. If the Singaporean Prime Minister is adamant on being innocent, he or his acting proxies, i.e. Monetary Authority of Singapore and Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), is welcomed to file a case with the Australian authorities.”
States Times Review will refuse to remove the alleged offending article. If the Singaporean Prime Minister is adamant on…
Posted by States Times Review on Friday, 9 November 2018
https://theindependent.sg.sg/mas-files-police-report-against-alex-tan-of-states-times-review/