New Petition Asking Singapore To Ease Travel Restrictions for South Asians Who Are Vaccinated

There is a new petition on change.org “Ease Travel Restrictions for Vaccinated ‘Indian’ with Singapore” which asks that the Singapore government allow vaccinated individuals from South Asia to fly into the country without restrictions.

The petition starter, “Srinath Raddy” say that they should be allowed entry as long as they have a “vaccination certificate issued by the India government”.

“Singapore has continued to tightened the border restrictions which have severely affected many Indian travelers in multiple ways. Working from India is disallowed by SG based companies which directly affects livelihood (salary cut) of stranded Indians which in turn negatively impacts our lives and family. The renewal of work permits and other passes are at risk, in some cases they were cancelled. Students are unable to resume education and poses huge uncertainty in their progression.

Family ties remains distant for more than a year. This has deeply affected the mental health as many family members haven’t seen each other for prolonged period. People including non-pass holders are unable to provide required care for their own family members for Non-Emergency Medical Needs (i.e. To assist pregnant woman, unwell child, aged parents which need a regular health monitoring & utmost care for them).”
– Srinath Raddy

Many commenters on the petition also shared that they have been separated from their families, even though it’s actually the same for many other countries out there. Everything that the petition starter mentioned also applies to people of other nationalities – families are separated, mental health is affected, it’s a pandemic after all! Moreover, if it is really about family, they can always fly back to South Asia to reunite, nobody is stopping them from going home!

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So what makes these South Asians think that they are so special? They should wait till the world opens up. When Singapore wants to open up to vaccinated people, they should do it for other countries too! As much as it is only “fair” to allow families to reunite, we should not be giving South Asians special concessions that we don’t give to the rest of the world!

Also, even if their government issues vaccination certificates, how can we trust that what they submit to enter here is the real thing? Even if the certificate is real, how can we trust that the vaccination they took was the real thing? There were already cases of fake vaccinations being administered to their own citizens. They even have fake oxygen tanks!

Our government giving CECAs all their benefits all these years already make them so self-entitled, thinking that they should be valued more than people of other nations, including Singaporeans.