(Clearwisdom.net)
Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/5/2/60268.html
Part 2: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/5/6/60396.html
Since July 1999, when the Jiang regime began persecuting Falun Gong, and especially since 2000, many Chinese Falun Gong practitioners living in Singapore have met with great difficulties in renewing their various passes, applying for permanent residency status, and Singapore citizenship. During interviews for these applications, questions asked by officers in the Immigration Bureau all had something to do with Falun Gong. According to these applicants, the officers wanted to collect as much information as possible about Falun Gong practitioners in Singapore and their activities through the interviews.
Singapore police have met with Falun Gong practitioners on many occasions, and they often took down details of practitioners' personal lives. Local practitioners even suspected that the police officers contacted or joined in practitioners' groups pretending to learn Falun Gong to secretly inspect and collect practitioners' information, so as to form a list of Falun Gong practitioners in Singapore to be monitored, and set up a complicated procedure so as to create great difficulty for the practitioners to apply for passes, permanent residency status and citizenship status, and many applicants were rejected several times.
Singapore's specific and unpublicized policies targeting Falun Gong practitioners indicate that it does not welcome Falun Gong practitioners living in Singapore. In the face of these difficulties, many Chinese Falun Gong practitioners had to choose to leave Singapore for other countries.
Deferral of Student Pass Renewals
Case 1
Ms. Zhen, a Ph.D student at the National University of Singapore, applied to renew her student pass in May 2002 when her first three-year student pass expired. Her application was then processed for about three months. During that period, she was given social visit passes three times instead. Not until her supervisor wrote an appeal letter to the SIR to complete her Ph.D study, was her visa renewed in August 2002.
Under normal circumstances, the SIR renews a student pass in about 3 working days.
Case 2
Ms. Zheng, a Ph.D student at the Nanyang Technological University since December 1998, applied to renew her student pass in November 2000 with a supporting letter from NTU. At the counter she submitted the application, and the officer told her to pick up the pass in three days.
Three days later, she went to SIR to get her renewed student pass but was informed that her application was still being processed. Instead, she was given a one-month temporary social visit pass. She was given no reason for the delay. One month later, she was given a one-month social visit pass again. In total, she was given 5 social visit passes extending to February 2001. Her student pass was then approved and renewed.
Refusal of Employment Pass Application
Case 1
Ms. Du, an MBA student at National University of Singapore, got a job in her department at NUS after her graduation, but her employment pass application was rejected without reason. Her information had been recorded once before an exhibition on November 10, 2001, held by the Chinese Embassy to defame Falun Gong. She may have been listed among Falun Gong practitioners monitored by the immigration bureau.
Case 2
Ms. Wo, an MBA student at National University of Singapore, got a job in Singapore after her graduation in 2002. However, at first her application for an employment pass was rejected without reason. She also had her personal information recorded by the police when she practiced the exercises on the campus of National University.
Refusal of Assembly Permit Applications
On October 23 2000, 13 Falun Gong practitioners applied to the Tangling Police Division to do the Falun Gong exercises in front of the Chinese Embassy to express their concern over the severe persecution in China.
In a letter dated November 6, 2000 the Tangling Police rejected their application. A copy of that letter follows.
Singapore Falun Gong practitioners tried to apply for other public events and permits such as to attend Chinese Book Exhibitions and to distribute VCDs containing the truth about Falun Gong. (These can be freely downloaded from Internet, so there are no copyright issues.) But these applications were rejected either by the organizer or the police.
Tangling Police rejected the application in its reply without giving any reason
Termination of Access to Public Facilities
Before July 1999, Falun Gong practitioners in Singapore were allowed and welcomed at many community centers (CC) and residential centers (RC) in Clementi, Bukit Batak, Yishun, Tampines and others, to hold free 9-day classes to teach the Falun Gong exercises to the public. However, these activities were immediately terminated without reason after July 1999 and have not been allowed to resume despite numerous attempts. Currently, many other qigong and exercise groups continue using CC and RC facilities to teach the public.
Free nine-day seminar at West Coast Resident Center before July 1999
Free nine-day seminar at Clementi Resident Center before July 1999
Forced Resignation from Work
Ms. Chen, a permanent resident of Singapore, worked as an account assistant at Hawaii Furniture Ltd from April to June 2000. She worked hard and performed well in her work. At the end of the three-month probation, a human resources rep named Daisy called Ms. Chen to her office. Their conversation focused on Falun Gong. Daisy told her that if she didn't talk about Falun Gong in the company, they would promote her to the position of regular employee. Next day, the head of the company called Ms. Chen to her office and asked Ms. Chen to understand the company's situation. She said that in Singapore, it appears quiet on the surface, but if anyone in the company practiced Falun Gong or was involved in some "sensitive" activities, the Singapore government would come to investigate. It would directly affect the prospects and benefits of the company. The boss told Ms. Chen that she didn't do anything illegal, but Singapore is a small country and cannot stand up to China. Once Ms. Chen understood the company's position, she quit immediately.
Source: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/index2.php?option=content&task=view&id=137&pop=1&page=0
