Singapore—Vulgarities taking aim at Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and ruling People’s Action Party that had been sprayed on the glass doors of a DBS bank in Hong Kong were immediately removed on November 14.
Singaporeans first heard of the graffiti via the Facebook page Concerned Citizens Band Together for a better Singapore, where two photos of the DBS unit were posted on the same day (Nov 14).
TODAY reports the bank as saying the vulgarities were removed immediately, although evidently some photos of the graffiti had already been taken. “The graffiti on the branch in Hong Kong was cleaned off as soon as it was discovered this morning,” a spokesman from DBS told TODAY.
The exact location of the Hong Kong DBS branch has not been identified.
A connection between the graffiti and recent remarks that PM Lee made was suggested by some media outfits, wherein citizens of Hong Kong may have not been pleased with what the Prime Minister said.
At the Forbes Global CEO Conference at the Shangri-La Hotel in Singapore, Steve Forbes, the chairman and editor-in-chief of Forbes Media, had asked questions concerning the situation in Hong Kong, where life has been disrupted by protests since June.
PM Lee told Mr Forbes, “The demonstrators, they say there are five major demands, and not one can be compromised. But those are not demands which are meant to be a programme to solve Hong Kong’s problems. Those are demands which are intended to humiliate and bring down the government.”
He also said that Singapore thrives best “when the region is stable, when other countries are prospering and we can do business with them.”
Violence has escalated in the territory in the past five months with demonstrators at first only asking the government to withdraw a contentious extradition bill but have since expanded their cause to what they’ve termed as “5 demands.” These are, 1) the complete withdrawal of the extradition bill; 2) a retraction from the government of the characterization of the priests as “riots”; 3) the release and acquittal of protestors who had been arrested; 4) an establishment of an independent commission to investigate police behavior during the protests and 5) the resignation of the Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, as well as full freedom to elect the city’s Legislative Council and Chief Executive.
This week, in particular, has seen another wave of growing violence in the protests, including an almost all-night standoff at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where the university’s Vice-Chancellor himself was teargassed as he endeavoured to approach the police for negotiations.
Transportation, classes, and businesses have all been affected by the demonstrations.
On the night of November 12, Tuesday, a separate unit of a DBS bank that was on fire in Yee Wo Street in Causeway Bay was caught on video, which also circulated online. DBS said that fortunately, none of its employees had been hurt in the fire and that the unit had escaped damage. -/TISG
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