Transformative Justice Collective (singapore) - No Comment: Your Right To Resist The Police

Here in Singapore, policing permeates every aspect of our lives. Whether the web of invisible red tape constraining free speech or assembly, or the roving eye of the CCTV camera trained upon us, or the presence of officers (increasingly robots) on patrol in everyday spaces, we are constantly reminded of the state’s anxiety to maintain social control through its monopoly on legal force.

How do we, as the people, protect ourselves in light of a seemingly all-powerful state?

This handbook aims to provide some basic answers. We cover what to do when stopped or visited at home by the police, what to do during interrogation, and outline the potential consequences of facing a criminal investigation. Anecdotes from activists and organisers who have experienced police repression illustrate the issues in the handbook.

In other countries, legal handbooks teach you to protect yourself by exercising your basic rights, for example, by refusing police interviews until you have seen a lawyer. Such rights do not exist here. Instead, given the limited scope of legal protections against unreasonable questioning and arrest, we emphasise tactics for harm reduction against police overreach – how to push back, draw boundaries, negotiate.

Whether you are a citizen going about their everyday business or an activist looking to best exercise a right to speech and assembly, we hope this handbook is a useful starting point to protect yourself as best you can whilst continuing the struggle for a world without policing. Abolition may be difficult to imagine today but, in the words of Ursula Le Guin, so was the divine right of kings.

The usual disclaimer applies: This handbook is birthed from the experience of various activists and organisers, and does not constitute legal advice.

This chapter presents a series of common situations where you may encounter the police. They are also equally applicable to situations where you are confronted by other enforcement officers (e.g. from the URA or LTA), given that they may in certain circumstances also exercise some police powers.

Use logic and common sense to determine the best course of action. Cooperate or focus on de-escalation if your priority is to get out of the situation fast. However, police officers sometimes take advantage of your ignorance of the law to act beyond their (already wide) powers – the best way to protect yourself is often to continually press officers to justify their actions, and to make them cite the specific legal basis for their actions.

If you don’t hold your ground, the police will push you over.

Protecting Yourself:
Ask the police for proof of identity
Take down their name, rank and unit. This is all the more crucial if the officers are in plainclothes.

Record the interaction via audio/video
This is to keep police accountable. If they say that you cannot do so, or ask you to delete or surrender any film or image, ask them to show you the particular provision of law that forbids it. If they say you are ‘obstructing their duties’, ask how the police they are being obstructed, or whether any officer is endangered by the film. Insist that the recording is for your own protection, and clearly does not obstruct or endanger them.

Text a friend or fellow activist
Update someone (preferably with some experience), so they can come down and assist, particularly if you are being arrested. More eyes on the police means more safety.

#1 Filming the Police
During a candlelight vigil outside Changi Prison, our group was approached by police. An officer was filming throughout. We asked him to stop, and asked him where in the law it states that he is allowed to film. The officers kept insisting that they don’t have to explain where in the law they can do these things. In the end, the Commander of that division ended up telling the officer to stop filming. I also asked for officers’ names, titles, and took photos of them. Years later, during yet another police encounter outside Changi Prison, I filmed an officer and he didn’t say anything about it.

What the police might do:

The police may ask for your IC, name and address
You are only obliged to provide your details and NRIC if the officer informs you that an offence is suspected to have been committed. Get them to state the offence, and write it down (incl. date, time, officer name and rank) before providing anything.

The police may retain your IC for investigation
The police have the right to retain your IC for the purpose of investigations, though this is uncommon.

The police start asking you questions
Ask if the questions are part of a statement taken for the purpose of an investigation. If it is not, do not engage. Ask if you are arrested or if you may leave – it can’t be both. If they insist on questioning you, tell the police you will cooperate in a formal interview and ask them to serve written notice under Section 21(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code to be interviewed at a station another time. You can speak to a lawyer before the interview.

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