Local socio-political website, The Online Citizen, appears to have published yet another inaccurate statement, even after the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) reached out to the publication with a clarification.
The inaccurate statements have to do with a Straits Times report that revealed that Leader of the House Grace Fu had sought the Attorney-General Chambers’ (AGC) advice before asking Workers’ Party chairman Sylvia Lim to retract her statement about the timing of the tax hike announcement and apologise for her remarks, last Tuesday.
TOC appears to have taken the report to mean that the Government is seeking legal redress against Sylvia Lim after she refused to apologise.
The publication posted an article entitled, ‘PAP government seeks legal avenue against Sylvia Lim after failing to apologise in ‘Test Balloons’ saga’, in which it suggested: “PAP government is making a new move by consulting with AGC to see if there is a legal case against Ms Lim.”
MCI took issue with this inaccurate statement and emailed a correction to TOC’s Chief Editor, Terry Xu:
However, TOC appears to have misinterpreted the original report once again in a new article today and in the correction to the earlier article.
In response to the MCI email, it changed the original statement to: “Today, ST reported that the PAP government made an earlier move by consulting with AGC to see if there is a legal case against Ms Lim, as she did not succumb to PAP’s pressure to withdraw her statements and to apologise in Parliament.”
This statement too may be inaccurate – how could the Government consult the AGC “as” Sylvia Lim did not apologise, if the Government had reached out to the AGC before Fu even asked Lim to apologise?
It remains to be seen whether MCI will reach out to TOC once again.
https://theindependent.sg.sg/fu-sought-agcs-advice-before-asking-sylvia-lim-to-recant-and-apologise/