SINGAPORE COMMUNISTS

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1946, Page 5

SINGAPORE COMMUNISTS

ATTEMPT TO CELEBRATE CITY’S FALL.

SINGAPORE, February 15.

One person was killed and seventeen were injured in a clash between the police and about five hundred demonstrators, who were carrying banners, and who attempted to start a forbidden procession on the anniversary of Singapore’s surrender. The demonstrators gathered on a football ground and disobeyed a police order to disperse.

The police last night raided the premises of the Malayan Communist Offices as well as the General Labour Union, and New Democratic Youth League offices. They took several persons to C.I.D. headquarters for questioning. Reuter’s correspondent at Singapore says: The population are fully prepared for an attempt to defy the official ban on the Communists’ proposals to hold a mass commemoration of the fall of Singapore.

FALL OF SINGAPORE COMMUNIST CELEBRATION. TURNS INTO TRAGEDY. (Rec. 6.30). LONDON, February 16. There was a clash / when Chinese Communists held a demonstration at Singapore to commemorate the fall of that citadel to the Japanese. The “Daily Mail’s” Singapore correspondent, in an account of the circumstances of the demonstration, stales: It was held to commemorate the fall of Singapore. The Malayan Communist party had asked for permission to hold a procession and a mass meeting, and the Party went on with the arrangements when the British authorities suggested that it would be more fitting to celebrate the liberation of Singapore. Troops stood by. They took no part in quelling the riots. The police of Singapore ignored a bystander’s protest, and beat demonstrators even as they lay unconscious. The correspondent says he protested to a British Army major when he saw demonstrators beaten, but "the major waved me away.” He adds that a watching crowd shouted protests as police continued beatings. One young Chinese, dragged from a building to which he fled from the police, was clubbed when he joined his companions.