Vietnamese residents who took photos with SDP’s Bryan Lim and Paul Tambyah ask for their images to be deleted so as to not “be involved”

The Singapore Democratic Party’s Mr Bryan Lim and Professor Paul Tambyah took photos with Vietnamese residents yesterday (July 23), only to be emailed shortly after, with requests for the couple’s images to be deleted.

Mr Lim speculated on his social media page that the two were “probably fearful that their work permits would be revoked if we post the pictures”.

Prof Tambyah and Mr Lim were visiting residents at Holland-Bukit Timah GRC.

Mr Lim added, “The interesting bit was that we bumped into 2 Vietnamese residents who took photos with us without realizing that we were from the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP).

Incredibly, within an hour, they emailed us to request for their photos to be deleted from our camera”.

In responding to TISG’s queries, Prof Tambyah and Mr Lim said:

We were doing our house visits when we met two young residents who were interested to speak to us.

When we found out that they were not citizens, we encouraged them to spread the word about democracy, transparency and accountability to their Singaporean friends.

We then asked if they were interested in a photo and they happily agreed. 1 of them actually went to change his T-shirt. After the photo taking, we shook hands & moved on.

About an hour later, we received an email from them asking us to delete the photo as they did not want to “be involved in Singapore politics”. We obliged promptly & even informed that we had done so.

It is sad that simply talking with a resident about issues that matter to us all should raise such fears and concerns.

We may be different in terms of nationalities but we still have to face the same problems created & unaddressed by the PAP government.

Mr Lim also mused, “Will they (the Vietnamese residents) have made the same request if the photos were taken with the PAP incumbents? Are they fearful coz they have never come across alternative political parties in communist Vietnam which may have been “outlawed”?” -/TISG