Singapore — Founder of Healing the Divide Iris Koh was granted $20,000 bail on Friday (Feb 4) and handed another charge.
Her second charge was of obstructing a police inspector from discharging her duties, as Koh is accused of tearing up a printed copy of her statement recorded on Jan 25 at the Police Cantonment Complex.
Earlier this week, Koh was denied bail by High Court judge Justice Vincent Hoong, on Monday (Jan 31) when she made a last-bid attempt to be released on bail for the Chinese New Year festivities.
Koh’s lawyer, Mr Clarence Lun of Fervent Chambers, said that given his client’s health condition, Koh should be allowed to spend time with her loved ones to “gain emotional strength”.
Last Friday (Jan 28), Koh was charged with conspiring with Jipson Quah, a general practitioner in defrauding the Ministry of Health that unvaccinated people were given the Covid-19 vaccine, Sinopharm.
As part of bail conditions, she is not allowed to contact, directly or indirectly, co-accused persons, alleged accomplices or any witnesses, including members of the group whom she had allegedly referred to Quah, a Straits Times article reported.
In response, Mr Lun said that the added condition requested by the prosecution was “overly broad”. He added that with the investigations still ongoing, it would not be clear who the involved parties may be.
Furthermore, he highlighted that Healing the Divide has more than 6,000 members, making the scope of the condition very wide.
In response, District Judge Ng Peng Hong said he would direct the prosecution to provide a list of witnesses who Koh should not contact, and the defence can get confirmation from the prosecution as to who is a witness and cannot be contacted.
Released on bail
When Koh was released on bail, some of her followers and husband Raymond Ng gathered at the Police Cantonment Complex to receive her.
In a Facebook group Voice Your Grievances post, one of Koh’s followers shared photos of her speaking to members of the media and wrote: “Today we went to the court mention of Iris Koh and billed her out of police retention. The amount of mental abuse she went through the last 14 days is simply incredible! We will back her all the way and f*****g fight to the end!”
“Reporters were all over her as she exit Cantomemt Police HQ. And pls stop listening to the nonsensical and pathetic mainstream fake news on Iris!,” a follower who went by the name Koh Ken Kuan wrote.
Her husband also went on Facebook Live video with her, where she thanked “everyone for their support and their press”.
During the video, Koh and her husband were stopped and warned not to take photos or videos outside the police complex.
Koh was filmed telling the press that she was happy and relieved to be out. “Bad laws will make criminals of good people,” she added.