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IMF meet: Singapore bans protests

P. S. Suryanarayana

Secure area at venue lobby for indoor demonstration

SINGAPORE: Singapore has disallowed the entry of persons reckoned to pose a security threat or a law-and-order problem to the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) Group. The Board of Governors will meet here on September 19 and 20, while the seminars will begin on September 16.

It has become a practice of the Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in recent years to stage protest rallies coinciding with major international economic conferences on a range of issues including the perils of globalisation.

Singapore made its stand clear in the context of rumblings of discontent among some of the IMF-WB-accredited CSOs over the City State's ban on outdoor protest rallies. A secure area has been earmarked at the lobby of the conference venue for indoor protests by the accredited CSOs. Some of the CSOs have announced their intention to shift the venue of their rallies to nearby Batam in neighbouring Indonesia.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) indicated that 508 individuals from 261 groups had, as of Sunday night, applied for permission to carry on their activities on the sidelines of the IMF-WB meetings. Singapore "raised objections to 28 persons."

Briefing the media, top SPF officials said these 28 included "characters who were involved in disruptive actions" during earlier international economic conferences. While one of them had broken into the WB offices and stolen confidential documents, another was said to have briefly taken over a consulate in San Francisco in the past.

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