Thursday, May 2, 2013

Big Crowd at May Day Protest

Helped unwittingly by the Singapore government, a big crowd turned up at the Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park yesterday for a political protest against the government's immigration policies. Event organiser Gilbert Goh put the figure between 5,000 and 6,000, though international wire agency AFP estimated the crowd at over 3,000 people.

No matter the final number, the people who showed up proved that the anger against Singapore's immigration policies as not abated. The May Day protest was a follow-up to one held in Feburary where 4,000 people turned up. With the number between 3,000 to 5,000 this time around, the number of people who turned up remained the same (if not, slightly more). This is good news for the protest movement as the number of people who attended has remained constant despite there being a 10 week break between the 2 protests. Most people, including me, had thought that less people would attend the protest yesterday but this is not the case.

Delighted with the number of people who attended, Mr. Goh has already indicated that more protests would be held at the park and that means more headache for the Singapore government in the future. Hopefully, the government would learned a lesson from the AMP saga. For the next protest, do NOT stop people from speaking at the protest. It help the protest movement far more than it hurts.

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