Singapore: human rights lawyer faces new round of investigation
Event- Country
- Singapore
- Initial Date
- Oct 19, 2022
- Event Description
Anti-death penalty and human rights lawyer, M Ravi is facing yet another round of police investigations over potential offences of Criminal Defamation and Contempt of Court by Facebook posts he made in April and May this year.
This was shared by freelance journalist and anti-death penalty activist Kirsten Han on her Facebook page. There she posted a screenshot of the police letter issued to Mr Ravi where it is stated that the police is conducting investigations upon him in regard to potential offences of Criminal Defamation under Section 499 of the Penal Code 1871 and Contempt of Court under Section 3(1)(a) of the Administration of Justice Act 2016, in relation to posts made in Mr Ravi’s Facebook page dated 20 April, 25 April and 5 May this year.
Mr Ravi has been ordered by the Police to turn up at the Police Cantonment Complex for an interview on 22 October at 9 am.
On top of this new investigation, Mr M Ravi is facing at least seven other investigations that have yet to be concluded and has had various disciplinary tribunals (DTs) held against him over the past couple of years.
The most recent DT to be convened against Mr M Ravi by the Singapore Law Society over the appeal by Mr Nagaenthran a/l Dharmalingam for leave to commence judicial review proceedings in respect of his impending execution and criminal motion for him to be assessed by an independent panel of psychiatrists and for a stay of execution of his sentence.
Nagaenthran who was assessed by a medical expert to have an IQ of 69, had subsequently lost his appeals and was killed by hanging at the Singapore Prisons on 10 November last year after spending 11 years on death row.
Arguing at a recent hearing on two contempt of court charges against him on 10 Oct, Mr Ravi told Justice Hoo Sheau Peng that both judges whom he has been accused of being in contempt of, have already filed disciplinary proceedings against him and he has been suspended from legal practice.
He told the court that since being confirmed to have suffered a relapse of his bipolar disorder in December 2021, the Attorney General had commenced five disciplinary proceedings against him.
Mr Ravi said that he had been stressed out throughout the months of his medical leave from December 2021 to May 2022, and he was not able to rest and recover from his illness. He said there were “enough ongoing proceedings against me.” Further, nothing that the allegation of bias was a fair comment.
- Impact of Event
- 1
- Gender of HRD
- Man
- Violation
- Judicial Harassment
- Rights Concerned
- Freedom of expression
- Online
- Freedom of expression
- HRD
- Lawyer
- Perpetrator-State
- Police
- Source
- Monitoring Status
- Pending
- Event Location
Latitude: 1.3670483382018246
Longitude: 103.78089793940651
- Event Location
- Summary for Publications
On 19 October 2022, M. Ravi, human rights lawyer, was summoned by the police for investigation over defamation allegations stemming from his anti-death penalty social media posts shared earlier this year in Singapore.