When Han Hui Hui and Roy Ngerng announced in May that they would be organizing a “CPF” protest on 7 June, 4 pm to 7 pm, at Speakers’ Corner – they were planning for about 250 people – just like their previous protest in May at Speakers’ Corner on “Jobs and wages”.
In fact, they had announced on their blogs that the $500 plus excess money from the previous events, would be sufficient to cover the costs of the “CPF” protest.
They had actually invited all the political parties and some Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to send speakers to speak at the protest.
And then “all hell broke loose” – when Roy Ngerng was served a letter of demand which eventually lead to Roy being sued for defamation.
Roy’s lawyers advised Roy to not be a joint organiser of the protest anymore. So, the burden of being the sole organiser fell onto the lap of a 33 kilo 22 year old girl, Han Hui Hui.
The phone, messages, emails, postings, meetings, etc, poured in like a flood practically everyday.
The original 4 speakers ballooned to 9. So many other people wanted to speak, tell jokes, etc.
It was becoming an unplanned, uncoordinated spontaneous “tsunami” – people were vandalising bus stops (a 71 year old man was arrested), people were printing flyers on their own and distributing them (one gentleman posted on the internet that he printed 4,000 flyers), unconfirmed reports of a man distributing flyers outside Parliament, posters pasted all over Singapore (Mr Tan Kin Lian received a call asking him about why the posters were pasted all over? – to which he replied that he was only one of the speakers, not the organiser), etc.
Actually, even the organiser, Han Hui Hui didn’t know that people were printing and pasting posters all over Singapore.
3 days before the protest – ‘all hell “really” broke loose’ – the company that had agreed to put up the stage (someone called to sponsor the stage but wants to remain anonymous) called to cancel because they would have no business for the national day celebrations (2 months from now!), Roy received a call that he cannot have donation boxes (as Roy was no longer one of the organisers – he conveyed the message to Han Hui Hui), the printers called to say that they dare not print, etc.
In this regard, Han Hui Hui asked how she is going to recover the estimated $2,000 that she has to pay upfront first for the sound system, etc – since donation boxes will not be allowed?
Does it mean that she may only be able to have people give to her account vide internet banking or atm?
Come down to speakers corner on 7 June, 4 pm to 7 pm, with your family and friends.
History is in the making – an unprecedented $88,000 has come in to the Roy Ngerng legal defense fund in a week – and you never know – with so many people posting all over the internet that they would come to do so many things (people have made their own protest t-shirts, posters, placards, banners, umbrellas, songs, poems, etc) – the way that things have been happening – you may never know what to expect on 7 June.
Leong Sze Hian
