A group of 8 young people who wanted to protest against local anime distributor Odex's legal actions decided to stage a protest... with their toys... at *Scape, a youth park. The idea was to stage a demonstration with their toys and do a photo shoot at *Scape (Slogan for the youth park: Feel the Space. Fill the Space).
Their project, called the People’s Action Figures Party, was met by 4 "Ang Chia", or riot buses, from the Special Operations Command. Yes, a whole bunch of cops dropped by their party.
You know lah, these action figures and toys, when they stage a protest, you never know if things will get ugly and they start using their superpowers and laser beams. So it is important to send the right show of force to keep the supertoys in line.
A police officer from Tanglin division asked them questions and took down the names and identity card info of the participants (but did not take down the particulars of the toys) and also videotaped the youngsters as they conducted their toy protest photo shoot. But by Zer0's account, they were allowed to complete their shoot and at no time did the police intimidate them (I suppose the police officer videotaped them in a friendly way?).
It is so important for law and order to maintained, because, you know, although you might be well-behaved, someone might want to conduct political debate with one of your protesting toys, say, He-Man, and then there will be a potential for public disturbance and civil disobedience, if he calls upon the Power of Greyskull.
You can read their accounts here and here. The incident was not reported in local media, but you can read the Reuters report.
(Photos from Zer0 and Pp's blog)
Singapore: Feel the Space. Fill the Space.
