Minister says Sammy Obeid's censorship claim is 'completely fictional'; US comedian denies lying

The authorities are considering taking further action against what Law Minister Edwin Tong said was a "completely fictional" account of events put out by Lebanese-Palestinian American comedian Sammy Obeid over his cancelled stand-up shows here.

- Kok Yufeng Correspondent

The Straits Times understands this could involve using the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act, Singapore's fake news law.

Mr Tong, who is also Second Minister for Home Affairs, was responding on Aug 31 to the comedian's claims of censorship over elements in his cancelled performance at Victoria Theatre that would have been critical of Israel's actions in Gaza.

"Let me be clear — there was not a single edit requested by IMDA (Infocomm Media Development Authority) on the script," Mr Tong told reporters at Siglap South Community Centre.

"In fact, there were no communications with Mr Obeid on the script, and his own agent has confirmed this. So what Mr Obeid has described simply did not happen. Why he has done so? I don't know," he added.

The minister reiterated that the sole reason that Mr Obeid's application for a performance permit was rejected was that it came in too late. He added: "The rules say that licence applications have to be submitted 40 working days to IMDA before a show is put up. In this case, he applied on Aug 15 for a show on Aug 31. That is about 30 days late."

Mr Obeid has denied lying. On Aug 31, he posted a video on Instagram in which an unidentified person tells him over the phone to remove "anything that has to do with Palestine and Israel".

"They've given us until 3pm today," the person is heard saying in another video clip that was posted. This was after Mr Obeid agreed to making edits to his script for the Singapore shows, which were meant to be held on Aug 31.

The comedian did not say in his post when the videos were taken, nor did he identify the person on the phone.