SIX CHINESE BANISHED

Press, Volume XCIV, Issue 28080, 22 September 1956, Page 11

SIX CHINESE BANISHED

Action Taken In

Singapore (Rec. 8 p.m.) SINGAPORE. Sept. 20. The Chief Minister of Singapore (Mr Lim Yew Hock) has announced that the police have arrested on banishment orders six Chinese because their activities were not in the best interests of the people of Singapore, and not conducive to the success of the talks he plans to hold with Britain on Singapore’s constitutional future. Mr Lim told a press conference that his Government has also ordered the dissolution of two Singapore societies —the Singapore Women’s Federation and the Chinese Brass Musical Gong Society. He said that the six Chinese will be banished to the place of their birth as soon as a ship is available. Asked whether they will be sent to China, Mr Lim replied: “I do not know where they were born. But we cannot banish people born in Singapore.” He said that the six arrested are: Lim Chin Kok, president of the Leftwing Singapore Factory and Shop Workers’ Union; Cheng Mopg Hock (Linda), president of the Singapore Women’s Federation: Miss Tan Get Heng, a schoolteacher and committee member of the Singapore Women’s Federation; Pang Sui Siong, dean of studies at the Chung Cheng High School; Chen Kwang Fung, chairman of the Singapore Chinese Primary Schoolteachers’ Union, and Chen Meng Hui, dean of the discipline of the Chung Cheng High School. Asked by reporters why his Government had arrested the six Chinese and ordered the dissolution of the two societies, Mr Lim replied: “The Government has decided that strong action must be taken to counter the growing menace of Communist front organisation and the covert penetration by Communists and fellow travellers of otherwise reputable associations with apparently reputable aims.”