Singapore must never allow prejudice against any community to become accepted or normalised, Prime Minister Lawrence Wong said on Sunday (September 6, 2026), days after racist and xenophobic comments appeared online about the Nepal-Tibet flash floods disaster and the Singapore Airlines-Air India partnership.
Singapore has an overall population of over six million — of which 75% are Chinese, 15% Malays, about 9% Indians and the rest from other countries. Such sentiments also surfaced during the 2025 general election, when Mr. The prosperous city-state is trying to manage a declining population due to a low local birth rate and depends on foreign talent to maintain its high-performance economic activities as part of the global network, which has already been badly hit by the West Asian conflict, a diplomatic observer said.
“We can and should have robust debates. But we should never use seemingly legitimate arguments as a cover to fuel prejudice against any community or hostility towards foreigners,” the Channel News Asia quoted Mr. Wong as saying. The Prime Minister’s remarks come a day after Singapore Senior Minister K. Shanmugam had spoken about it. Mr. Wong spoke out against attempts to bring race and religion into politics. “We can reject such views, and refuse to give them more space or legitimacy. Expressing his condolences to those affected by the floods, Mr. He also noted that Mr. Lee as saying.
Shanmugam said police are investigating “shameful” and “totally unacceptable” racist and xenophobic comments posted online about the Nepal-Tibet flood disaster and Singapore Airlines’ (SIA) investment in Air India. Racist comments surfaced online targeting some of the nine Singaporeans missing in the Nepal-Tibet disaster, while questions about SIA’s investment in Air India were “accompanied by anti-Indian abuse”, he said. they should not be dismissed as “harmless online chatter”, he said While such views do not represent Singapore. “If such behaviour goes unchecked, it can become normalised, deepen mistrust between communities, and pull us apart,” PM Wong said, adding that he had discussed the developments with his Cabinet colleagues and that this was why Mr. Wong said that Singapore had encountered similar tensions before, pointing to how “anti-foreigner” and “racial sentiments” were stirred up during the COVID-19 pandemic and surfaced during debates over the Singapore-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement. “There will always be people who seek to exploit our differences,” Mr. Wong said. Singaporeans could choose how they respond to them, he said While it is impossible to prevent every hateful comment from appearing online. “Singapore has held together because we have consistently rejected attempts to divide us along racial or religious lines, and chosen instead to recognise one another as fellow Singaporeans,” said the Prime Minister. Former Prime Minister and now a Senior Minister in the Cabinet, Lee Hsien Loong, on Sunday (September 6) also called on Singaporeans to “stand by one another regardless of race, language or religion”. He added that it was “equally troubling” when issues such as SIA’s investment in Air India were “distorted or exploited to stir vicious racial, anti-Indian resentment”. Lee said the tragedy had left many families grieving and that the response should be one of “compassion and solidarity”. Shanmugam had “laid out the issues clearly” in his statement on Saturday (September 5). “When incidents like this happen, leaders must speak up with force and conviction, to call out what is happening, condemn the manipulation of base emotions, and call on all Singaporeans to stand together,” the Channel quoted Mr.
