Doctor in open letter to delay Covid-19 jabs for schoolboys in police probe for online posts about Islam and Muslims
SINGAPORE – A police report for alleged disparaging comments online against Islam and Muslims has been made against a doctor who had earlier co-authored an open letter calling for Singapore’s Covid-19 vaccination programme for young people to halt.
Responding to queries from The Straits Times, the police confirmed on Wednesday (June 30) that a report had been filed against Dr Kho Kwang Po for his posts online about Muslims and Islam, and investigations are ongoing.
When contacted, Dr Kho, whose letter was on Monday countered by Singapore’s expert committee on Covid-19 vaccination and a senior infectious diseases specialist from the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), told ST that he was unaware of the report and declined to comment.
Screenshots of several of his Facebook posts commenting on Muslims and Islam were circulated on several websites.
In one of his posts last year, he wrote that there was much violence associated with Muslims. In a post from 2019, he questioned why the religion needed protection from criticism.
Dr Kho made headlines this past week when an open letter posted on his Facebook last Saturday, addressed to Professor Benjamin Ong, chairman of Singapore’s expert committee, called for a pause in Singapore’s vaccination exercise for young people until the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and organisations elsewhere produced more robust and convincing data following a fatal case.
A 13-year-old American boy had died days after he received his second dose of a Covid-19 vaccine in the United States.
The Ministry of Health (MOH), which oversees Singapore’s expert committee on Covid-19 vaccination, said that news reports about a child’s death in the US did not state heart failure as a cause, as alleged in the open letter. “The matter is still under investigation by the US authorities,” it said.
In a Facebook post on Monday, National Centre for Infectious Disease’s Associate Professor David Lye said the doctors behind the open letter were misleading and misinforming the public.
The letter was signed by Dr Kho; Dr Wong Wui Min, a cardiologist and heart specialist at W.M. Wong Cardiac and Medical Clinic in Gleneagles Hospital; Dr A.M. Chia; Dr L.W. Ping; and Dr I.W. Yang.
It was said to be penned “on behalf of many concerned paediatricians, primary care physicians, specialists, surgeons and GPs”.
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