Demon-cratic Cartoonist Shares Personal Tale of “Wrongful” Arrest: “Teo and Roy are Not Isolated Incident”

“When in their lockup, I was groped by their guards every morning and evening…”

The chap who draws that “Demoncratic” series of political cartoons, Leslie Chew, has spoke up about his arrest in 2013 for sedition.

Comparing his arrest to that of Teo Soh Lung and Roy Ngerng, Chew says he suffered “bullshit” for 3 months without a word of apology.

While Chew faced sedition charges, Teo and Ngerng together with socio-political website The Independent Singapore are being investigated for breaching rules about promoting a party or political candidate during the Cooling Day period of the Bukit Batok by-election.

This is Chew’s tale:

“What happened to Teo Soh Lung and Roy are not isolated incidents or once in 50 years kind of things.

In March 2013, someone filed a police report over one of my cartoons and just because of that, the police had me arrested under sedition, raided my parent’s home, seized all PCs including my dad’s, seized my phone and all data storage devices, thrown me into their stinky cell for 2 days, handcuffed me like a criminal, interrogated me for over 30 hours with handcuffs on, confiscated my passport and put me under island arrest for 3 months, forbidding me from returning to my home in Malaysia, made me report for police bail countless times, before they discovered that they cannot charge me with sedition and quietly drop the charge.

The arrest was so wrongful that they did not even dare give me one of their infamous yet utterly useless police warning.

When in their lockup, I was groped by their guards every morning and evening under the pretext of “searching for hidden weapon”, and upon return from their Interview Room after each interrogation session. I felt molested but held my tongue simply because I knew I was not dealing with reasonable people there.

But because of their 3 months long investigation over no crime at all, I was made to suffer from having no access to my data which is on my laptop and storage devices. I was forced to stay in Singapore when my home for the past 10 years has been in Malaysia. I would not have been able to work had it not been fans and friends who rallied to get me a replacement phone and PC. My father too had to suffer from not being able to access his data on his PC due to them having seized his “for investigation” too.

And after suffering all these bullshit over 3 months for committing no crime, what did I get from the Singapore Government? Nothing. No apology, no compensation, not even a single word of sorry. 3 good months of my life that I am never going to get back just vanished like that.

Is that fair to me? Is that fair to my parents? Is that fair to my wife? Is that justice for Singaporeans?

What really is my crime? What really is Soh Lung and Roy’s crime? That we love and care about Singapore and Singaporeans too much?

So to all of you who have voted for the PAP and endorsed this type of “justice” for Singapore, I can only hope that the same happens to you and your family members one day soon too. Perhaps only then will you fully appreciate what many innocent people have unjustly being made to go through due to your collective decision.

And when it does, you have my full congratulation because you do fully deserve it since you voted for it. I didn’t.”