Defiant Singaporeans watch banned docu in Malaysia

Hundreds of defiant Singaporeans protesting censorship gathered in Malaysia to see a documentary banned by regulators in their home country as a threat to national security

JOHOR BAHRU, Malaysia Hundreds of defiant Singaporeans protesting censorship gathered in Malaysia on Friday, September 19, to see a documentary banned by regulators in their home country as a threat to national security.

'To Singapore, With Love' poster

The film, "To Singapore, with Love", examines the case of political exiles in the city-state and features interviews with nine former activists, student leaders, and self-confessed communists who fled Singapore from the 1960s until the 1980s and are currently settled in Malaysia, Britain and Thailand.

Organizers estimated 400 people watched the screening, saying most of the audience was made up of Singaporeans who had crossed the border to view the production in the southern Malaysian city of Johor Bharu.

The Media Development Authority (MDA), Singapore's media regulator, on September 10 banned the documentary, saying it provided a "distorted and untruthful" account of the exiles' situation.

It said the film's contents undermined national security because it showed "legitimate actions of the security agencies to protect the national security and stability of Singapore are presented in a distorted way as acts that victimized innocent individuals".

According to the Singapore government, a number of the exiles featured in the film were former members of the Communist Party of Malaya, which had sought to overthrow governments in Singapore and Malaysia in the 1950s and 1960s.

Singapore became independent from the Malaysian federation in 1965.

"I am disappointed by the reaction of the MDA, I wish it was otherwise of course...I spent a lot of time making it and really would have liked this film to have been seen (in Singapore)," director Tan Pin Pin told the audience in remarks after the screening.

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Defiant Singaporeans watch banned docu in Malaysia