A British man who refused to wear a face mask on public transport in Singapore and who reportedly harassed the police sent to arrest him for breaking Covid rules has been sentenced to six weeks in prison in the country. He has been charged, in part, for being a ‘public nuisance’. The Guardian has the story.
The city-state, which has had comparatively mild Covid outbreaks, has taken a tough line against people breaking virus rules, and there have been several cases of foreigners being punished.
Benjamin Glynn was arrested after footage of him not wearing a mask on a train in May went viral.
The 40 year-old subsequently harassed police sent to arrest him, and refused to wear a face-covering during a court appearance last month.
According to reports, Glynn delivered a rant in court – in which he described the proceedings as “preposterous” and “disgusting” – and said masks were not effective in preventing the spread of Covid.
This prompted the judge to order a psychiatric assessment, but Glynn was deemed fit enough for the case to continue.
On Wednesday, he was convicted for breaching Covid rules, his behaviour towards police, and causing a public nuisance.
A court official confirmed the jail term to AFP on Thursday, saying it was backdated to July 19th – the date when Glynn was first remanded.
As he had already served two-thirds of his sentence on remand, Glynn was freed from prison Wednesday and will be deported, according to local newspaper the Straits Times. …
In May, nine Britons were banned from working in Singapore after breaking coronavirus rules while partying on a yacht in Santa hats.
Worth reading in full.
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Not all heroes wear capes
Or a mask
Masks and beards sort of cancell each other out..( just sayin’)..But then ‘When in Rome’…
This wasn’t Rome, so clear off corporal.
Honestly no sympathy here. I think if you’re in another country you should respect their rules.
Just because he’s in Singapore, doesn’t change the validity of the covid scam. Their mad rules are the same as ours.
I can see both sides of this one. If he is resident there legally, which one presumes he is, then I think that confers a certain right to protest against injustice, especially if the mad rule in question was brought in after he established himself there.
I don’t think it matters either way. He wasn’t offending a host nation because he was breaking their cultural rules/protocols, he has been jailed (and subjected to all sorts of psychological abuse by the sounds of it) for objecting to this global scam.
Sure, but be prepared to face the consequences of one’s actions. Moreover, he “harassed” police and then threw a wobbly in court… What did he think would happen?
This is being reported by the Guardian, same people who have been demonising those who oppose masks for a year and half. Let’s see them quote word-for-word what he said in court.
I do get your position and have some admiration for his balls. It having spent a fair bit of time in Singapore, it’s not the kinda place you do that…
Yes. Singapore. coming soon to a country near you.
In my own country (England), I haven’t respected our rules (as I’d suspect most of people on this website haven’t either) – does the ‘no sympathy’ tag apply still? =)
I’m in England too and flout all the rules. But their our rules to flout…
totally agree
Yep, my view too. I don’t expect foreigners to come here and behave as they see fit, I expect them to obey the laws, as guests. Seems only basic consistency to return the favour.
If I don’t like the rules in a house, I don’t go there as a guest and pointedly flout them, I just choose not to go there.
Protest your own country’s laws, not the laws of countries you are a guest in.
Ordinarily I would agree – but this is not ordinary. This ‘law’ is an international rule for all, implemented in varying degrees of severity. Why would you disagree with it in our country then abide it in another country? It makes absolutely no sense.
You can cross one border (ignore the madness of quarantine for a moment) into another country and the same law exists regardless of that country’s own laws that they themselves have debated and decided upon.
I’m confident to be able to say Covid laws were not debated anywhere in the world, they appeared literally overnight under the guise of an emergency.
“Why would you disagree with it in our country then abide it in another country?“
Because in another country you are a guest, there by your own voluntary choice. Don’t like their laws? Either put up with them or don’t go there.
In the end, it’s that or globalism – one world government (de facto if not de jure) with no outside and no escape.
I don’t agree with the argument that the global covid hysteria changes that fundamental truth. The reality is that, while there is a global hysteria, the mask laws do vary from one country to another, even from one state to another in the US. Sweden, iirc, never had a mask mandate at all. It’s not for a guest in a country to declare that he won’t obey the particular laws of the country he’s a guest in because he doesn’t think they’re legitimate.
I think we fundamentally disagree on what has happened over the last year and a half. I wouldn’t call it global hysteria – in my opinion it’s more accurate to say it was a globally coordinated implementation of a programme that has been planned for quite some time. And I stand by my comment that it is one law applied to all, administered in varying degrees of severity depending on where you are on the grid.
When you peel away the narrative that the world has been fighting off a deadly virus, what is left underneath is blatant criminal conspiracy to depopulate the planet and use enslavement to reach their milestone.
Nothing better proves this is a criminal conspiracy than the murder of all those elderly patients, labelled “bed blockers” by TPTB, kicked out of hospital into care homes and injected with the same chemical that was previously used in capital punishment in the US. Their death certificates stamped with covid and misused to start this entire shit storm. We always hear it being called the “the first wave”.
But I digress, back to Singapore. Spare a thought for those people in that nation who do not believe in the scam. To see someone – anyone – who will stand up against the authorities could give them hope.
“in my opinion it’s more accurate to say it was a globally coordinated implementation of a programme that has been planned for quite some time. And I stand by my comment that it is one law applied to all, administered in varying degrees of severity depending on where you are on the grid.”
But it isn’t. As I noted, there are places where no mask mandate was imposed, and many where it’s very light touch. In the end it’s still the case that both imposition and enforcement are up to local jurisdictions.
Your position would mean the final abandonment of states and the transition to a global society. All that is left is the fighting over what the rules of such a society should be. I’m not prepared to concede that.
So no matter how much I might sympathise with his stance in isolation (and I suspect you know I do, as fully as anyone here – I have still never worn a facemask), I’m not going to concede a right to foreigners to come here and flout our laws because in his society or culture they regard them as silly, or evil.
It’s our stupid law and it’s for us to fight it.
“back to Singapore. Spare a thought for those people in that nation who do not believe in the scam. To see someone – anyone – who will stand up against the authorities could give them hope.“
I have a relative working in Singapore whom I’ve discussed these issues with, and my impression is that there’s virtually no understanding among the majority there of any reason why the idea of a state imposed mask mandate should even be questioned, and even less sympathy for foreigners too arrogant (as they see it) to obey their laws. Different cultures are different.
These are globalist rules, made by corrupt governments, that deserve no respect, rather like yourself.
I’d be interested to know what – if any – assistance he’s had from the British consulate.
And just look at the way the Guardian is demonising the bloke while they wring their hands with trepidation every day about their poor Shamima Begum, or the jailed woman in Iran who was obviously a British spy/agitator.
Is it any surprise? The Guardian is the scummiest of the left wing papers. Liberal Fascism at its ‘finest’ that sold out to the governments advertising handouts. Their begging bit on every page:
No ounce of integrity in that organisation.
The Guardian, like other lying mainstream “news” outlets, takes millions off Gates, every single year, for pushing his depopulating jab them all agenda.
The Guardian used to claim to “speak truth to power” but for a while now it is speaking power to truth.
We all have a duty to stand up to tyranny wherever it is practiced
Yes indeed. Compliance is a war crime.
I sort of admire him for sticking by his principles no matter what. I’m not sure I’d have done it in Singapore, though; I suppose if a foreign national disobeyed our rules they’d be granted leniency or discharged on account of not wanting to offend cultural sensibilities.
It must have felt good to have his say in court. Being subject to psychiatric evaluation sounds like it’s right out of the Soviet playbook.
“I suppose if a foreign national disobeyed our rules they’d be granted leniency or discharged on account of not wanting to offend cultural sensibilities.”
Not if his offence was against leftist sensibilities.
If someone of specially privileged characteristics were, say, to vandalise a statue, he or she would be treated as you describe. But if someone from, say, a still genuinely Christian culture were to suggest, for instance, that buggery might not be a healthy normal practice, he’d absolutely have the book thrown at him.
It’s all about the culture war these days
Gotta choose your battles man
As opposed to those who feel forced into wearing a mask, are those who zealously endorse mask wearing, fetishists.
Those who push the mask wearing nonsense are either plain stupid or paid liars.
The most disturbing part of the story is the fact that he was subject to a psychiatric assessment for saying that masks don’t work, even if it was in less than polite terms although there is no evidence that it was.
If you disagree with “the science”/authority you are deemed to be mentally ill. This could come straight out of 1984, and it was only a matter of time before it happened.
My impression was that the judge did that because of his stance in court, that the court had “no right” to try him, not for his refusing the mask.
Surely it’s not that difficult to understand why a judge in a foreign country might legitimately question the sanity of someone who did that in a courtroom? I doubt Singaporean judges have even the limited tolerance remaining in England for that kind of rather eccentric stand (even if you or I might regard it as admirable in some ways – again, mask issue aside).
Not at all sure what you are trying to say here. Masks are tyranny and tyranny should be resisted by all possible means. There’s nothing more to it.
Just an observation on the facts of the case as I interpret them, from the info available.
I don’t get the impression this man was sent for a psychiatric assessment because of what he was saying about masks. I’m saying he was sent for that assessment because of his approach to the trial and the court. And further, that I can absolutely understand why a Singaporean judge might feel moved to do that, in the face of such a seemingly irrational behaviour.
This was not a case, I think, as some seem to have assumed, of psychiatric assessment as a tool of oppression, as we have seen done in various places and times.
All of us here need psychiatric assessments, clearly.
Hero on the right side of history. “It only takes one person to make a difference”
Useful information, resources and links: https://www.LCAHub.org/
Indeed. Silence and compliance are war crimes.
Never once wore a mask, still here. The masked cling onto the belief that they are saving their lives which sounds like utter madness.
Ireland has been the real innovators in this new form of micro tyranny.
This was weeks ago
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/district-court/grandmother-jailed-for-90-days-over-refusal-to-wear-face-mask-1.4618417
Oh, and not a peep from anyone that this was wrong.
No surprise to see heavy handed authoritarianism in Singapore but it is shocking to see it in Ireland.
Ireland has been a pacesetter in Covid tyranny, since early on. What has happened to the Irish people’s spirit? The nationalist martyrs must be turning in their graves.
18 months in and people are still MENTAL about masks. When are they going to see that masks do nothing!
Masks are the mark of compliance. Stupid is as stupid does.
I think this every day. I go the local cafe which is fairly small and am constantly amazed to see people walk in wearing masks of all types, (even home made ones or visors), then take them off when they sit down, put them on again to collect their order, take them off again to eat/drink, (presumably they don’t mind handling their food at the same time as they handle their masks), then put them on again to leave. How can anyone who has the cognitive ability to dress and go out possibly think that this is somehow ‘controlling the virus’? Maybe it’s just my selfishness that stops me from seeing the truth…
Firstly, I love this bit of reportage “who reportedly harassed the police sent to arrest him” – that’s 1.1 out of the Police statement playbook.
Also, was it really the law to wear a facemask? There seems to be some doubt over all this in the UK, so why not in Singapore? I guess it is the law now after this judgment, but it may have been unclear before.
I cannot speak for singapore but in Thailand masks are mandatory with the only exemption being if you are exercising, i.e., running or cycling.
I live there and consider myself a guest in their country and so I ‘obey’ the rules – well more or less, it does depend on where I am going/doing.
We all know masks are useless and harbingers of bacteria etc, but TPTB insist on them.
So I am rather ambivalent about the chap who was arrested in singapore. It would be helpful to know exactly what was said by whom during the ‘altercation’.
Probably living in the wrong country if you don’t want to follow the rules. Anyone know the punishment for bringing drugs into Singapore?
And don’t even think of importing chewing gum into the country….
Though if I did believe in running an authoritarian state (I don’t), then banning chewing gum and long hair for men would be high on the list, along with banning the wearing of face coverings in public.
With regards to masks – these have been worn in various parts of Thailand for a long time – but that is because of the air pollution and very high PM2.5 count.
Death