PAP bait tactics

Here's a typical one ...Chee should just ignore Shanmu and continue to whack them. This gives Chee an opening to bring foreign workers issue as an election theme. The PAP is weak on this ...use it to drive home the message that the PAP is not there for us!

Chee Soon Juan told to clarify his position on immigration

Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan yesterday said Singapore's immigration policy has to be tightened in the light of the discovery of a cell of radical Bangladeshi workers, and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam has asked him to clarify his position.

Dr Chee's comments to reporters came a day after the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced that eight Bangladeshi workers had been detained for plotting violent attacks back in their country.

"We need to pay a lot more attention on people who come to our shores," he said in response to questions from reporters in Bukit Batok, where he is up against People's Action Party (PAP) candidate Murali Pillai in a by-election this Saturday.

"You let in hundreds of thousands, millions, you've got to be asking yourself, there must be people there who are not properly vetted," he added.

The men have been detained under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows for detention without trial for two years in the first instance, and is a law Dr Chee and the SDP have spoken against.

Dr Chee did not respond directly to questions on whether the ISA was needed and whether he felt it should be abolished, a position SDP holds, saying the case had "nothing to do" with it and "everything to do with immigration policy".

"Let's get at the root cause of the problem, that is where we need to stop this problem, before something really untoward happens here in Singapore," he said.

"The only way you can do this is when I get into Parliament. We will make sure that we raise this with the Home Affairs Minister, and ask him, give us the lowdown on who's coming into Singapore," he added.

Asked by reporters for his reply, Mr Shanmugam said Dr Chee's comments suggest a lack of understanding of the nature of the problem.

The minister pointed out that some 1,000 people from Indonesia and Malaysia have gone to fight in the Middle East, and hundreds of radicalised individuals have been arrested globally and in this region, including Singaporeans in Singapore.

"So what does Dr Chee suggest? That we say no to all foreign workers? Or we say no to all foreign workers who are Muslim? I think he should clarify," he said.

He pointed out that there were "tens of thousands of Bangladeshi workers" here who work in construction and as cleaners in the town councils.

"So what do we do? Send them all back? Who is going to do their jobs? And also in the construction sector, (if) you send them back, who suffers? Singaporeans will lose their jobs too," said Mr Shanmugam.

He also said that after the terror attacks in Paris and Jakarta and the latest arrests, it was odd to still want to abolish the ISA, which allows for detention without trial for a period of up to two years at a time.

Security matters, he added, "require careful consideration, proper thought and we should all just avoid taking cheap shots at political opportunism".

"So what does Dr Chee suggest? That we say no to all foreign workers? Or we say no to all foreign workers who are Muslim? I think he should clarify," he said.

He pointed out that there were "tens of thousands of Bangladeshi workers" here who work in construction and as cleaners in the town councils.

"So what do we do? Send them all back? Who is going to do their jobs? And also in the construction sector, (if) you send them back, who suffers? Singaporeans will lose their jobs too," said Mr Shanmugam.

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It is the same old bs from the PAP.

Do away with the town councils, MSO, mayors and let the HDB do the estate management and save billions of dollars. Then HDB can afford to pay sinkees decent salaries to do the work done by the Banglas. When sinkees have jobs, they can afford to spend. Banglas send most of their money home.

Chee should point out that the cheap foreign workers is the source of many problems in this country. It suppresses wages, throw sinkees out just when they are at the peak of their career and create social tensions. Thank the PAP for that.

Sinkapore is a developed countries and yet we allow a sizeable portion of our population to live in third world condition.

Hes attacking the issue from the wrong angle,instead of approaching it from the angle of overcrowding,depressed wage growth,increased competition and displacement of Singapore an workers and loss of quality of life,he is basing his argument on irrational fear and paranoia of violence and religious extremism

I prefer the good ol' days when Ah Gong would call the opposition politician a racist or a liar, the fella would deny it, and Ah Gong would proceed to sue him for defamation, for insinuating that Ah Gong was a liar.

This is an old trick of PAP.

When citizens screaming too many FTs, too fast, be them fake of otherwise, PAP will ask who is going to do the construction work..blah..blah...blah..ie, foreign workers, which SG need.

When citizens screaming a lot are jobless replaces by cheap and probably fake foreigners, PAP will give statistics of 'residents' which include the foreigners.

PAp purposely side step or 'mis-interpret' the questions and give an irrelevant answers. You think they are stupid, with all the credentials they claim they possess?

Question to post back to Shanmu is, why is he resisting the more stringent screening of incoming foreigners, especially those coming to work on longer term basis? If he is confidant of current screening process, then should there be an stack, is he going to be responsible? Oh hang on, PAP is never responsible for anything bad that happen in SG.

What's new from PaP?

Chee should just ignore them or give a them a similarly irrelevant t answer and see how they respond.

winnipegjets said:

"So what does Dr Chee suggest? That we say no to all foreign workers? Or we say no to all foreign workers who are Muslim? I think he should clarify," he said.

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I think it's Shanmugam who has to clarify why he had singled out one particular religion among ALL foreign workers.

Dr Chee was speaking about foreign workers by and large.