Four Protesters met by 40-strong riot squad

Found this article on the 'net: : News Flash: Police send in riot squad to deal with 4 protesters - 11 Aug 05

Below is the mainstream press' version of the same events as shown in an extract from an article, "Protesters sent packing" from TodayOnline:

"Singapore News // Friday, August 12, 2005

Protesters sent packing
by Ansley Ng

Police dispersed a group of six people (bolding mine - Joe90) who had gathered outside the Central Provident Fund (CPF) building yesterday after receiving several calls that a crowd had gathered at Robinson Road.
.The group were protesting against a lack of transparency and accountability in three Government organisations.
.Wearing white T-shirts painted with red words and carrying placards printed with the slogan "Singaporeans spend on HDB; Whole life earnings, on CPF; Life savings but cannot withdraw when in need", protesters Monica Kumar, Yap Keng Ho, Charles Tan and Chee Siok Chin arrived at 12.30pm and stood outside the building for nearly an hour before being ordered by police to leave for being a "public nuisance".
.Ms Chee, the sister of opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, said the protesters did not represent any political party or group.
."We are members of a civil society," said Ms Kumar, who distributed a statement to reporters during the protest. "

Having read the TodayOnline reporter's version of events, one has to come to the conclusion that Mr. Ng probably either doesn't know how to count, or there is an unspoken reason for the deliberate miscount. There were only four protesters, but he says it was "a group of six people." From this, one can only surmise that the words used in Mr. Ng's report were carefully chosen to make the police appear justified in their act of breaking up the peaceful protest. TodayOnline probably included Mr. Chee Soon Juan and his friend as part of the so-called "group of six," even though both the group of four protesters and Mr. Chee clearly denied being connected with one another. As pointed out in the SDP's article, "The law clearly states that only five or more people gathered in a public place constitutes an illegal assembly." So, it also begs the following questions: Why were 40 policemen called in to break up what was essentially a peaceful and lawful gathering of only four people? From the same report it says, "Police said they had received several calls that a crowd had gathered at Robinson Road." Does a group of only four people constitute a crowd? Also how could this group of four people be construed as a "public nuisance" when all they were doing was just standing in a public place and holding up placards in silence, and not calling out or shouting out or harassing any passersby at all? If anyone was doing any harassing that day, it certainly wasn't this peaceful group of four citizens.
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