Thread by @wali_talks

Joel Chan York Yee, an National University of Singapore student I investigated last year for his filming of women w/o their consent during sex, has pleaded guilty to 2 counts of voyeurism. But this story goes WAY deeper (a long, WILD 🧵)

TW: SA, suicide

straitstimes.com/singapore/cour…

Having spoken to one of the two survivors, Ava*, for more than a year, I can guarantee you that it has NOT been easy getting to this stage. And on a university level, things have been downright rancid.

But first, the sexual violence that Mr Yee engaged in:

I had to break the news to Ava and she had no idea Mr Yee had plead guilty nor did she know about the article. This is not good.

let’s begin with this:

This was an article I published after receiving intel about Mr Yee being expelled. We had to toe legal lines since the police investigation into him had been in its infancy so bear with the barebones nature: theparrotreview.com/op-ed/nus-expe…

It was during this time I received a cease and desist from Mr Yee’s lawyers at Leo Fernando LLC. It was boilerplate scare tactic bullshit and also not the first C&D I’ve received so I ignored it

After that article, another possible survivor reached out to me and spoke on the record. theparrotreview.com/op-ed/sexual-a…

Here are some details from her interview with me; she spoke of a phone being propped up to film, sexual coercion, and his reported obsessive desire to be in a relationship after just one meeting. Many of the details match up with the other survivors in the court case:

This survivor was anxious to speak. Upon her request, I accompanied her to the police station where she provided a statement to them about her interaction with Mr Yee (pictured below)

Following that article, @straits_times , Singapore’s newspaper-of-record, published an article mentioning our investigation. Took the university two weeks to offer up a paltry response.

straitstimes.com/singapore/nus-…

The response to us confirmed specific details we had asked about ie. the disciplinary hearing. Our goal here was to be as specific as possible to force a response: theparrotreview.com/op-ed/after-a-…

But something else more sinister had been tucked away behind the inner workings of the university. The concerted effort to silence survivors culminated in an internal investigation to root out my sources and nail down what they considered a “data breach”

babes it’s called the free press but ok anyway

I received calls from Ava who was mortified at having been explicitly interrogated by Kalaivani Kalimuthu (pic below) a Singapore Police Senior Staff Sergeant turned NUS investigations officer tasked with rooting out the leak and figuring out my sources.

I possess definitive proof of this interrogation, of course. It’ll probably never be revealed to the public but I’ve reviewed it (I can’t even reveal what medium the evidence is in bc it’s THAT sensitive) and it is vile. There’s no other word for it.

After that interrogation, I received a call from Kalimuthu who demanded to know my sources involved with “the release of sensitive documents.”

When asked what documents were confidential, she told me that the NUS board of discipline’s verdict (his expulsion) was confidential

It blew my mind (just think of the implications) but anyway that was okay because I told her that I wasn’t going to tell her anything and asked if her full name was “Kalaivani Kalimuthu” since NUS omitted her last name in their staff list. She said yes, but hesitated for a moment

I asked Kalimuthu this because I obsessively read cases of botched police investigations and noticed her name looked familiar. Then I found these, cases of botched investigations involving her:

In this 2016 case (reported 2019) Kalimuthu forged victim testimony to close a case early, saying that the survivor didn’t mind being touched and recommended no further action be taken.

To make things worse, when the case was reassigned and headed by another officer, papers were sent to the AG Chambers recommending that the survivor be warned for furnishing false info. All because Kalimuthu said she couldn’t secure an interview with the survivor.

Kalimuthu, jailed in 2019, was also the last officer to interrogate Benjamin Lim, for the alleged molestation of an 11 year old girl. Benjamin’s suicide led to a national outcry & heated debates over police interrogation of minors and police procedures
theindependent.sg/benjamin-inter…

You are not allowed a lawyer when interrogated by the police in Singapore and interrogations are not video recorded despite multiple calls to do so by activists and lawyers.( @tjc_singapore has written about police procedures extensively pls follow them)

Back to the phone call I received— I hung up after she started asking me if I was gonna write about her “past” and began crafting what would eventually become this article: theparrotreview.com/op-ed/nus-inve…

This got me in trouble. Like… pretty big trouble. I started getting angry texts from Kalimuthu, complete with legal threats. Then the police called my father instead of me for some reason (?), telling me that I was to be interrogated.

I was asked about my motivations, and if I had been trying to put the police in a “bad light”

This interrogation lasted hours; I was being investigated under Protection from Harassment Act (POHA). Here’s a link to the penalties associated with that: singaporelegaladvice.com/law-articles/s…

Again, I did not have my lawyers present and could only consult with them before and after interrogations. They also had no idea how this was going to play out given how new POHA is as a law. sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/PHA2014?Pr…

This was especially distressing since I was an immigrant in Singapore (I hold a HK passport) and Kalimuthu might have had friends in the police force. Not to mention that I was risking prison and hefty fines before I even got to attend college.

I was under a Long Term Visit Pass after my student visa expired. So I had to repeatedly inform the officer that I was reporting at no salary (which was true) since I could not legally be employed as a reporter; take a look at this absurd list of jobs an LTVP-er cannot hold

The list goes on for a few pages (linked) but this was two months before I was slated to leave Singapore for Michigan State to pursue a journalism degree under scholarship. My family & I were terrified my passport would be impounded before I could leave
mom.gov.sg/-/media/mom/do…

At the behest of my lawyer, I published a letter to our readers regarding our intent since we were in legal trouble.
theparrotreview.com/op-ed/a-letter…

After the interrogation, where I had been asked about who had admin access to the magazine's CMS, I decided to stop any further publication till I left the country. Some writers left because they were afraid; this was essentially the end of The Parrot Review.

During this time I began a long investigation for @VICEWorldNews into cases of botched sexual misconduct investigations at NUS. This would eventually be published in late October, late into my first semester at Mich State:

My findings include abuse of process, medically discredited lie-detector tests being deployed on victims, and ineffective communication between survivor and instituitions making for extreme trauma. You can read the full investigation here:

vice.com/en/article/g5q…

Kalimuthu eventually left the university but NUS no longer publishes a staff list of their campus investigation officers.

In any case, I left for Michigan early out of precaution and have no idea if the investigation into me is still open. I contacted the officer got no reply.

I left on my mother's birthday.

I am unsure if I can go back to Singapore, where my family is, or if any subsequent visas will be granted since I left in the midst of the police investigation into me.

Not to mention that the gov has had no qualms shutting out immigrant voices; I was shocked at how blatant they had been in their hostility towards Zakir Hossain, a migrant rights advocate who couldn't get his work visa reviewed due to his activism.

mothership.sg/2022/06/migran…

Not making a comparison betw him and I at all, Mr Hossain's work is monumental. He is a hero. It just comes to show how systems work together to enforce censorship- especially immigration.

There's a lot of things we can learn from this and it's that whenever we see the dominant narrative being "ugh another NUS student is a rapist? What's wrong with them?" but I beg you to please examine the instiutions that provide an environment for these perpertrators to thrive

And the extreme trauma survivors are put through whenever they "go through the proper channels" because this is what happens when you leave your wellbeing in the hands of a world class, global university and "first-world" country.

I chose Michigan State after watching Athlete A, a documentary about Nassar's abuse and how the university covered it up. I've spent months looking into my own university and I'm excited for everyone to know what I know when the time is right.

Being published in the US in September made my heart glow but I just wanted everyone to know that a little more than a year ago, a journalist left the country for fear of his safety, he's still relentlessly active and he's not going to stop reporting about Singapore.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without the ferociously brave sources who decided to entrust me with information.

This guilty plea may seem like closure but given the absence of response, there are still so many unanswered questions.

Wow this kinda blew up! Follow my work on Instagram and on my online portfolio where you can also send in tips (DM for signal or telegram):

instagram.com/wali_talks/
walikhan.net

And please read my American investigations while you're at it:

https://twitter.com/wali_talks/status/1565458941718429701?s=20&t=2LEKPnRn1mB2yUvkdumFjQ

Big thank you to everyone who reached out: lawyers, fellow reporters, and academics. It means the WORLD to someone trying to make their mark in the journalism industry.

That's all- until next time (which is probably sooner than you think)

oops- accidentally put Joel's name down as Mr Yee, but it's Mr Chan*