Amid the heightened security climate, the organisers of this year’s Pink Dot event, which will be held on Saturday (July 1), has tripled the number of security personnel.

Over 60 security officers and auxiliary police officers will be deployed, and metal barricades will be put up around the full perimeter of Hong Lim Park. Bag and body checks will be conducted on participants at each of the seven access points.

Ahead of new laws to better protect the public from the growing terrorism threat - which will come into force in a few weeks - organisers of the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) event are taking no chances to beef up security. “This is the first year that we’ll have bag and body checks. This is to ensure the safety of participants,” said Pink Dot spokesperson Paerin Choa on Wednesday in an interview with TODAY. “We’re living in different times... security measures are a necessity nowadays.”

While it is the first time that barricades will be put up at the event, security personnel have been deployed for the past three years, Mr Choa said. This is the ninth year that Pink Dot will be held. In recent years, the event has attracted five-figure crowds, with about 28,000 people attending the 2015 event for example. Mr Choa urged those who are attending this year’s event to arrive early in view of the security checks, and to avoid bringing prohibited items such as sharp objects.

On Tuesday, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam wrote on Facebook that increased security measures for events such as Pink Dot were “absolutely required” in the current environment. Noting that Pink Dot will attract a large crowd, he said that it would be “irresponsible not to take security measures seriously at such events”. “Any large public gathering, with high profile, will be an attractive target... The security requirements will also be imposed at other events, even outside Speakers’ Corner, depending on the estimated crowd size, among other factors,” he added.

In April, Parliament amended the Public Order Act to, for example, require organisers of massive public events to deploy armed auxiliary police officers, put up barricades, and conduct bag and full-body checks. The new laws will take effect next month.

Separately, rules on foreigners’ attendance at Speakers’ Corner events were tightened last November. Revisions to the Public Order (Unrestricted Area) Act barred foreigners from participating in assemblies and processions. This has prompted the Pink Dot organisers to introduce identity checks at the access points to ensure compliance. Attendees will have their identity cards or passports checked before they can enter the area, the organisers had previously said.

Mr Choa said that as a result of the additional measures - which were derived after discussions with the police - the organisers’ security budget has quadrupled to hit a “mid five-figure sum”. Nevertheless, they need not worry about funding, even though the amended laws also explicitly prohibits foreign sponsorship. The organisers have raised at least S$240,000 from 120 local companies, exceeding the target of 100 sponsors. The majority of Pink Dot’s 18 sponsors last year were foreign companies.

“We are fortunate that our 120 local sponsors have come out in full force to support us, allowing us to pay for these added measures while ensuring that we are able to organise the event at a scale that continues to be representative of the significant number of people who wish to... support the freedom to love,” he said.

The support from local companies, mainly small and medium enterprises, has been “nothing short of amazing”, said Mr Choa. While the organisers had approached companies for sponsorship, around 70 to 80 per cent of the sponsors came forward on their own accord through word-of-mouth, he said. In March, Mr Darius Cheung, chief executive of property portal 99.co, set up a website to rally local companies to support Pink Dot. Over two months, the campaign gained traction, and word spread. Small and medium enterprises from the legal, design, food and beverage, and technology sectors chipped in, offering cash, food and drinks sponsorship.

“We knew that there’ll be support from local companies. We didn’t expect it to be so resounding. We were hoping to have 100 companies and we thought it was a little ambitious already. This is a turning point for us,” Mr Choa said.

Some 500 volunteers will be helping out at the event, up from about 400 last year, Mr Choa added. The volunteers will be involved in ushering and traffic control, for example.

Source:
courtesy of TODAY

by VALERIE KOH

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