Now, with businesses closing down and job losses mounting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the city-state’s residents are turning their ire towards foreign workers, particularly those from India. In particular, Singaporean social media has discovered a new villain: the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), a free trade agreement signed between the two nations in 2005.
In August, for the second time in nine months, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) was forced to issue a statement correcting the widespread public misconception that the agreement has led to a large influx of Indian professionals in fields like finance and information technology.
The MTI clarified that there is no provision under the CECA for Indian nationals to become permanent residents and citizens of Singapore. It also moved to quash rumors that CECA requires Singaporean authorities to automatically grant employment passes to professionals, managers and executives from India who wish to work in Singapore.
Despite these clarifications, Singaporean social media continues to buzz with anger against newly-arrived Indian nationals, whom significant numbers of people are blaming for recent, pandemic-induced job losses.
Such narratives are particularly common on Facebook, often bolstered and accompanied by the distribution of fake pictures and videos. In August, a picture of a DBS Bank branch in Hyderabad went viral on Twitter after a user claimed that it was a photo of DBS Bank’s IT department at Singapore’s Changi airport. The user asked viewers to “find a Singaporean or Chinese” in the photo. The post created such a big splash online that DBS Bank was forced to issue a clarifying tweet stating that “pictures being circulated on social media are from our India office, not Singapore.”
Similarly, on the public Facebook group SG Opposition, which has 52,000 followers, the user Michael da Silva in July shared a picture of ethnic Indians sitting at Changi Beach Park with a caption referring to it as “Chennai Park.” Da Silva even accused the government of grating Indian professionals Singaporean citizenship in order to harvest their votes for the ruling People’s Action Party. Similar sentiments have been voiced by other posters on the group.
Reacting to a news article about CECA on Facebook, one Singaporean woman commented: “Our jobs are taken by Ceca! Wait till the ministers’ jobs are also taken by them, then they will know!”
More at https://tinyurI.com/y4cw2sd9
In August, for the second time in nine months, Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) was forced to issue a statement correcting the widespread public misconception that the agreement has led to a large influx of Indian professionals in fields like finance and information technology.
The MTI clarified that there is no provision under the CECA for Indian nationals to become permanent residents and citizens of Singapore. It also moved to quash rumors that CECA requires Singaporean authorities to automatically grant employment passes to professionals, managers and executives from India who wish to work in Singapore.
Despite these clarifications, Singaporean social media continues to buzz with anger against newly-arrived Indian nationals, whom significant numbers of people are blaming for recent, pandemic-induced job losses.
Such narratives are particularly common on Facebook, often bolstered and accompanied by the distribution of fake pictures and videos. In August, a picture of a DBS Bank branch in Hyderabad went viral on Twitter after a user claimed that it was a photo of DBS Bank’s IT department at Singapore’s Changi airport. The user asked viewers to “find a Singaporean or Chinese” in the photo. The post created such a big splash online that DBS Bank was forced to issue a clarifying tweet stating that “pictures being circulated on social media are from our India office, not Singapore.”
Similarly, on the public Facebook group SG Opposition, which has 52,000 followers, the user Michael da Silva in July shared a picture of ethnic Indians sitting at Changi Beach Park with a caption referring to it as “Chennai Park.” Da Silva even accused the government of grating Indian professionals Singaporean citizenship in order to harvest their votes for the ruling People’s Action Party. Similar sentiments have been voiced by other posters on the group.
Reacting to a news article about CECA on Facebook, one Singaporean woman commented: “Our jobs are taken by Ceca! Wait till the ministers’ jobs are also taken by them, then they will know!”
More at https://tinyurI.com/y4cw2sd9
