S'pore activists lobby for marathon

S'pore activists lobby for marathon

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore rights activists have asked police to allow a planned marathon on Sunday to commemorate international human rights day, but they fear it will be rejected as a threat to public order.

Even if the run is refused, the activists said they would push through with a rally at a free-speech corner.

Organizers said the 26-mile marathon would represent a mile for each of the 23 years Chia Thye Poh was held as a political prisoner in Singapore, plus a mile for government crackdowns on opposition activists in 1963, when 150 were arrested, the 1987 arrest of 22 suspected Marxists and the remaining political prisoners on the island-state.

Chia was detained without trial for more than two decades under the Internal Securities Act for refusing to renounce his communist beliefs.