Death penalty abolitionist and social justice activist Kokila Annamalai Parvathi was charged on April 23, over her refusal two-and-a-half years ago to comply with a government censorship order.
As previously reported by Green Left, Annamalai defied a directive under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA), to issue a “correction” to an online post she and the Transformative Justice Collective (TJC) made about the 2024 execution of Azwan bin Bohari.
The post explained that Azwan had been on death row since 2019 after being arrested under the Misuse of Drugs Act four years earlier. It pointed out many inconsistencies and injustices in the way his execution had been handled by the state.
The POFMA grants ministers the power to order people to take down online content or post correction notices. People can also be pressured to issue an apology, so as to avoid defamation suits and other sanctions. Critics say the law is frequently used to silence dissent.
Annamali told GL at the time that the direction “required me to say that death row prisoners abuse the court process. We fight very hard for their right to bring cases — I’m not going to call these efforts an abuse of process.”
The POFMA direction also required Annamalai to say that the “Prosecution bears the legal burden of proving the case against an accused person beyond a reasonable doubt”, which is “a lie”, she said.
“It’s abhorrent that accused persons in capital cases have the burden to rebut the presumption that they were trafficking — there are at least six presumptions in the Misuse of Drugs Act and at least three that apply to capital offences.”
The Socialist Party of Malaysia has initiated the following joint statement in solidarity with Annamalai, calling for charges against her to be dropped and the repeal of the POFMA. The statement has been endorsed by a range of groups, including the Socialist Alliance in Australia.
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Joint Statement: Drop the charges against Kokila Annamalai in Singapore
We, the undersigned organisations, stand in solidarity with Singaporean abolitionist activist Kokila Annamalai Parvathi, criminally charged on April 23 for defying a correction direction under Singapore’s Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).
In October 2024, she spoke out about the arbitrary and opaque treatment of Mohammad Azwan Bohari and his family in the lead-up to his execution. The state’s response was not to answer her concerns but to order her — under threat of law — to publicly declare her own views false. She bravely refused.
For this act of conscience, she now faces up to 12 months in prison and a S$20,000 fine. This is the second criminal prosecution under POFMA since the law was enacted in 2019.
POFMA was never about falsehoods. It is a tool used by the government of Singapore to intimidate activists and silence dissent. This latest charge against Kokila simply proves it.
We call upon the government of Singapore to:
• Drop all charges against Kokila Annamalai Parvathi;
• End the use of POFMA against activists and dissenters;
• Repeal POFMA; and
• Impose an immediate moratorium on executions and abolish the death penalty.
[Organisations wishing to endorse this joint statement can email [email protected].]