World News

I had to reread that headline a few times before I remembered Massive Attack is a band 😑

They just released a song with Tom Waits called Boots on the Ground, great song highly recommend

They kinda did tricky dirty. But over all yeah.

They care about enforcing censorship and keeping a lid on "politics" disrupting "social harmony". One again Palestine is an issue that unearths the deeper fractures and contradictions in a society.

Well, theres this really insane military power that they're close trading partners with that really cares about their little ethnostate vassal.

Don’t they have other things to worry about on the other side of the planet?

Palestine-Singapore is not that far away compared to, say, Palestine-USA.

According to the article, yes:

The decision is tied to Singapore’s policies on public speech, which prohibit publicly displaying foreign national emblems without a permit or exemption.

You can freely wave the flag of Singapore in Singapore, but for any other national flag, there could be a problem if you don't get permission first.

There's just a lot of weird laws in Singapore.

Why do you love Singpore? Genuinely asking as someone who visits the place at least once a year.

When publicly stating alignment with Israel or Palestine, you have to choose if you want to be hated by the government, or the actual people on the street.

It always amazes me how different people and entities are held to different standards.

Possibly, but unlikely.

Singapore has a lot of very strict laws, and they apply them rigorously. Famously their drug possession laws have a ton of prison time, and often the death penalty for trafficking.

From the article, it is a very narrow but all encompassing law, originally passed in 1949 and the last update in 2021 predates the most recent conflict...

The decision is tied to Singapore’s policies on public speech, which prohibit publicly displaying foreign national emblems without a permit or exemption.

https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/FNECDA1949

I haven't listened to to that song since I started listening to Cocteau Twins. Didn't even realize Elizabeth Fraser was on it, makes sense in retrospect.

They've only had 1 party rule, it's technically a democracy but it's as rigged as it can be without crossing the line into actual rigging.

I visit Singapore quite often and it's dystopian despite all the pretty parks and malls. The thing is it's dystopian but boring so people don't really notice it. The entire "country" is a tax and school haven for Asian billionaires, there's absolutely nothing else there.

I doubt it actually, they're just real serious about their crazy laws and there's a crazy law about no foreign flags.

The German government is apparently blocking EU Sanctions to Israel but that's because it's pretty easy to block things in the EU.

Making the EU actually do things (such as banning this band from entering the Schengen zone) on the other hand is way more difficult since the other ones can block it (which Spain would almost certainly do it on this subject and many others would do simply because they're against blocking people to enter the EU just because one EU nation's government discords with them politically - the bullcrap about criticism of Israel being anti-semitism has very little traction in most of the EU and apparently even in the German Justice system).