SINGAPORE — Rather than waiting for 14 days to take down an offensive post against a religion, the Government may soon be able to order a takedown immediately to stop further spread of these posts.

Such an order may also be given to religious leaders or members of religious groups who promote a political cause, carry out subversive activities or cause discontent with the Government and the president of the country, the Ministry of Home Affairs said in a press release on Monday (Sept 2).

This is among several changes proposed to the existing Maintenance of Religious Harmony Act (MRHA) read in Parliament by Ms Sun Xueling, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Home Affairs, on the same day.

The Maintenance of Religious Harmony (Amendment) Bill is meant to guard against religious enmity and hatred, prevent foreign influence of religion, and ensure a separation of religion from politics in Singapore.

If passed, the changes are likely to impact the 2,500 registered religious organisations here today. Parliament is expected to debate the Bill in October.

WHAT IS THE MAINTENANCE OF RELIGIOUS HARMONY ACT?

The MRHA in its present form was introduced in 1990 and came into force in 1992.

It was designed to uphold two principles:

• To preserve religious harmony by ensuring that the different religions exercise moderation and tolerance, and do nothing to cause ill will among them

• To stop religion from influencing politics

It has not been altered significantly since its enactment and has never been invoked. The MRHA was written as the Internet started to become popular here.

As threats to religious harmony have evolved in the past three decades, several changes have been proposed, MHA said.

OFFENSIVE AND SUBVERSIVE ONLINE POSTS

Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said last month that the Act needs to be refreshed to address new threats arising from the ubiquity of the Internet.

He said: “The world has become a very different place. We now have Facebook, Twitter, Google. Hate can go viral in seconds.”

With the rise of social media, the changes are meant to expand the Government’s powers when issuing restraining orders, allowing it to take swifter action against offensive online posts.

Currently, if the Government wants to stop the spread of an online post that infringes the principles of the Act, it can do so by serving a 14-day notice to the person or the head of the religious group and wait for the person or group to give its views to the 10-member Presidential Council for Religious Harmony.

The proposed Bill will allow the Minister of Home Affairs to issue a restraining order that will take effect immediately. The recipient of the order may still make his own representations to the Presidential Council after that.

NEW CHANNEL TO RESOLVE RELIGIOUS HOSTILITY

Instead of hauling offenders to court, a new approach called the Community Remedial Initiative (CRI) will offer offenders a chance to voluntarily reconcile their differences with the offended religion.

This will avoid further religious animosity caused by a public trial.

If passed, Singapore would be the first in the world to adopt such an approach for offenders to mend religious differences.

• The offender may serve his CRI through various means determined by MHA, which will also hear views from the offended religion on how to remedy the offence without resorting to criminal prosecution:

• The offender could be asked to apologise privately or publicly.

• He could be asked to take part in activities by the offended religion, giving the offender opportunities to understand the religion that he has insulted as well as Singapore’s multi-religious society.

Criminal prosecution cannot be taken against an offender who has completed his CRI. This initiative is not mandatory and the offender can decline to take part in it.

SAFEGUARDS AGAINST FOREIGN INTERFERENCE

MHA said in its statement that Singapore is also vulnerable to foreign actors “exploiting religious fault lines” and “imposing values which may not be appropriate for us and may undermine our religious harmony through our religious organisations”.

These foreign actors “can exert influence and control on our religious organisations through holding leadership positions, donations or their affiliations with the organisations”, the ministry added.

If passed, the law will guard against these foreign interference in three ways:

• Leadership requirements will be placed on Singapore’s religious organisations, such that their governing bodies and their top leadership comprise mostly of Singaporeans.

• Disclosures are required for any one-time donation of S$10,000 and above from foreign sources.

• Religious organisations will have to declare affiliations with any foreign individual or organisation that is in a position to exert control over them.

ENHANCING RELIGIOUS OFFENCE LAWS

The new Bill proposes porting over laws from the Penal Code that target acts of religious hatred and disharmony, into the MRHA. Race-related offences will remain in the Penal Code.

Because of their greater ability to influence their followers, religious leaders will also be held to a lower threshold than laymen when deciding if an offence has been committed. 

“Religious leaders will be held to a higher standard of behaviour,” MHA said in response to TODAY.

For example, for persons who are not religious leaders, the offence harming religious harmony must have threatened the public peace or public order in Singapore before it is considered an offence. For a religious leader, this element of threat to public peace or public order is not required for the actions to constitute an offence. 

In addition, the changes will add a new extra-territoriality clause, which means that such criminal offences committed overseas may also fall under the MRHA, provided they have targeted or caused an impact in Singapore.

Section 74 of the Penal Code, which describes the enhanced penalties for racially or religiously aggravated offences, also known as racial or religious hate crimes, will also be enhanced. At present, the law raises the maximum punishment for specified offences by one-and-a-half times if the offender targets a victim because of his race or religion.

If passed, the maximum punishment will be increased to two times, and will cover all offences in the Penal Code, not just specific ones.