Singapore grad claims NUS censored his death penalty protest

 

A photograph of Luke Levy’s graduation with a blurred image of the message on his protest note. (Twitter pic)

PETALING JAYA: A student of the National University of Singapore (NUS) has claimed that the university censored his protest against the death penalty during his graduation ceremony last week.

Luke Levy said NUS “tried to erase” his on-stage protest act by taking down a live recording of the university convocation and later posting an edited version of the recording.

On social media, he posted an image of a poster he had displayed at the ceremony and said an attempt at censorship had also taken place on the official photograph of the ceremony.

“In the official stage photograph that I paid for, for my own private display, the photo studio actually took time to try and edit out the words on my sign out,” said Levy on Twitter.

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“You can still make some words out though, thank goodness they didn’t do a good job with it.”

Levy, a social science graduate, said he had given “a space” on the stage for death row convicts Kalwant Singh, Norasharee Gous and others who have been executed in Singapore, as well as those still facing the death penalty.

He accused the university authorities of showing they would silence anything that threatened their power.

Kalwant, a 32-year-old Malaysian, was hanged on July 7 for possessing 60.15gm of morphine and trafficking 120.9gm of the drug. On the same day, Norasharee, a 48-year-old Singaporean was hanged for trafficking in 120g of morphine.

The death sentences were carried out despite protests from human rights groups and the public. - FMT