Leong Mun Wai Edited Facebook Post That Sparked Heated Exchange in Parliament

There have been more developments to the debate that first sparked between Non-Constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) Leong Mun Wai and Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam on Monday (20 March).

After Mr Leong uploaded a Facebook post criticizing Mr Shanmugam’s responses to his supplementary questions at the Parliamentary sitting on Monday, he omitted certain lines from his original post.

Mr Leong announced the revisions made to his Facebook post on Thursday (23 March) after further consideration of what happened.

What Were the Edits Made to His Facebook Post?

In his original post on 20 March, Mr Leong brought up that Mr Shanmugam’s actions of bringing up “the Parti Liyani case [was] just another attempt to muddy the waters” (it has since been taken down).

After Mr Leong raised this point, Mr Shanmugam responded at the Parliament sitting on Wednesday (22 March).

He stated that Mr Leong had said all of this to claim that he had used an “irrelevant example” and was trying to “confuse Parliament”.

Mr Leong has since taken down this point on his post after he had been asked to withdraw his statement claiming that Mr Shanmugam was trying to “muddy the waters”.

He was also asked to withdraw his statement that the ex-employees of Keppel Offshore & Marine (KOM) involved in a corruption case were found guilty.

He agreed to do so, as reiterated in the Facebook posts uploaded by Mr Shanmugam and himself, with the latter admitting he was wrong in implying that they were all guilty.

Another amendment to his post highlighted why, for Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee Suet Fern’s case, their names were publicized as being under investigation by the Police when the same was not done so for those involved in the KOM case.

He shared that one of the conditions under which those under investigation will be named would be “when there is a lot of misinformation being circulated regarding an investigation and the police must make public accurate facts to dispel the falsehoods”.

On this point, he included additional liners that there was no disclosure of Mr Lee Hsien Yang and his wife being under investigation until it was done so by Parliament.

He also questioned why the Police could not issue a public statement on this matter.

Although the Minister had asked him to take down the entire post, Mr Leong regarded it as a “disproportionate response” and “have not considered it appropriate” since his post raised other points he deemed valid with no objections made to them.

His Facebook Posts Had Been Taken Down Previously

In early March last year, Mr Leong had been asked by Zaqy Mohamad, Deputy Leader of the House, to apologize and remove his Facebook posts that were said to have impugned the Speaker of Parliament, Tan Chuan Jin, and the processes of Parliament.

The posts had eventually been taken down, but there was no apology post issued that had been requested by Mr Zaqy.