SINGAPORE – A woman who fabricated a story about suffering a miscarriage at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH) and the founder of alternative news site Wake Up, Singapore (WUSG) who published the false account were both fined by a district court on Aug 26.
Ma Su Nandar Htwe, a 28-year-old Myanmar national and Singapore permanent resident, and WUSG’s founder Ariffin Iskandar Sha Ali Akbar, a 27-year-old Singaporean, each pleaded guilty to a charge of criminal defamation.
Ma Su Nandar Htwe, who admitted to submitting the fake story because she “wanted drama”, was fined $10,000.
Ariffin was fined $8,000. He published the story just 20 minutes after e-mailing KKH, before the hospital could reply.
The court heard that Ma Su Nandar Htwe sent the false account to WUSG’s Instagram account on March 21, 2022. In it, she claimed she tested positive for Covid-19 in February 2022 when she was 20 weeks’ pregnant.
She claimed she arrived at KKH at 2pm that day and started bleeding from her vagina at about 5pm. She said she could see a doctor only at 6pm and he told her: “No need ultrasound, the baby is probably dead, this is too much bleeding.”
She claimed she “expelled” the baby on a hospital bed and lost consciousness. She added that she later asked for her baby’s body to give it a proper burial but was told by KKH that the foetus had been “disposed of as medical waste”.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sheldon Lim said all her claims were lies, except the fact that she was pregnant when she visited KKH on Feb 28 to seek treatment for Covid-19 and abdominal pains.
She was discharged from KKH on the same day in good health and delivered her son safely on July 6, 2022.
DPP Lim said Ma Su Nandar Htwe sent WUSG the fabricated story to harm KKH’s reputation.
After receiving her messages, Ariffin asked her for medical documents to support her claims. The woman sent him a scanned copy of a medical receipt from KKH dated Feb 28, 2022.
On March 23, Ariffin sent an e-mail to notify KKH that WUSG intended to run the story and asked if KKH wanted to respond.
He did not wait for KKH to respond and published the story on WUSG’s website and its Instagram and Facebook pages just 20 minutes after sending the e-mail.
The story, which was later taken down, was titled “The baby is probably dead – Woman shares harrowing account of her miscarriage at KKH A&E”. It was picked up and published by other local news outlets.
KKH did its own investigations and found major discrepancies between Ma Su Nandar Htwe’s account and its medical records.
When a senior manager at the hospital contacted Ma Su Nandar Htwe on March 24, she said her legal team had advised her not to speak about the matter.
The next day, she ignored four calls from the hospital. She later e-mailed KKH to say she stood by her account in the story.
At about 1pm on March 25, Ariffin published an update to the story on WUSG’s Facebook page questioning why KKH had said it was unable to identity the patient in the story when it had been communicating with Ma Su Nandar Htwe.
KKH made a police report shortly after the update. At around 4pm that day, Ariffin took down the story and update from WUSG’s website and social media accounts.
When he messaged the woman to check on her, she admitted that her account was untrue. She told him: “I sent you things in the heat of the moment because I was also agonising over the loss of a previous miscarriage, which was handled by KKH.”
This claim of a previous miscarriage was also false.
When Ariffin learnt the story was fake, he apologised to KKH and asked to be put in touch with the investigation officer handling the case.
He published an article on March 26 to explain to readers that WUSG had been deceived by the woman. He also complied with a correction direction under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act issued by the Ministry of Health.
The prosecution sought a fine of $9,000 to $10,000 for Ma Su Nandar Htwe and a fine of $8,000 to $9,000 for Ariffin.
DPP Lim said she had fabricated a grave allegation against a public hospital during a global pandemic. “She constructed such an appalling lie for an utterly frivolous reason – to stir up some drama as a cure for her boredom,” he added.
As for Ariffin, the DPP said his desire to gain traction on WUSG’s online pages outweighed the need for journalistic integrity.
“Ariffin was not whispering gossip to a single friend – he utilised his media platform to propagate the story without conducting the most basic checks,” said DPP Lim.
In mitigation, the woman’s lawyer Jacintha Gopal said her client was going through a difficult pregnancy during the pandemic and her behaviour was “out of character”.
Ariffin’s lawyers, Mr Eugene Thuraisingam and Mr Gino Hardial Singh, said their client made every effort to correct the record in a timely fashion when he found out the story was untrue.
In his oral remarks, District Judge Shawn Ho said the pair’s actions were irresponsible, adding that they harmed KKH’s reputation and weakened the public’s trust in Singapore’s healthcare system.
For criminal defamation, an offender can be jailed for up to two years and fined.
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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.
