Childcare centre Al-Amin takes issue with ST report
By Ong Dai Lin, TODAY | Posted: 02 April 2009 0729 hrs

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SINGAPORE: A childcare centre is suing newspaper company Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) for alleged defamation.

Al-Amin Education is claiming that a Straits Times article last year had implied its Tampines branch was responsible for a 13-month-old boy and his five-year-old cousin contracting hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD).

The plaintiff further claims that the article last May had alleged it was negligent in maintaining hygiene standards to control the disease and did not take any reasonable steps to update parents about the HFMD situation in the centre.

SPH is disputing the claim. Its lawyer Andrew Yeo from Allen & Gledhill said Wednesday in his opening statement that the words used in the article were not defamatory in nature. He added that the May 23 article was published on an occasion of qualified privilege, as it had conveyed information on an issue of public health and there was public interest.

Taking the stand first in a hearing scheduled for two days was Al-Amin Education director Syed Alwi Al-Tahir, who said the centre has two channels to inform parents of its HMFD situation: through its notice board and circulars.

Mr Syed Alwi said teachers would place circulars in the children’s communication books, which parents are supposed to check for any information from the centre.

The court heard that Al-Amin Education had sent a letter dated April 1 to parents informing them of three HFMD cases in the centre, following a Ministry of Education (MOE) advisory to pre-schools about stepping up hygiene standards to prevent HFMD.

Al-Amin Education, which also runs a centre at Pasir Ris, subsequently updated MOE and the Ministry of Health of fresh cases in April and May.

But since no written notice was given to parents about these cases, SPH will also rely on the defence of justification, said Mr Yeo.

Mr Syed Alwi stressed that the centre closed voluntarily from April 8 to 10, which parents would have known. “It’s a partnership (with parents). You can’t put the whole burden on the school,” he said.

The reporter who wrote the article, Salma Khalik, also testified on Wednesday. She said her article “blames nobody” and that it was “just a factual representation on what happened”. The article was “triggered” by a press release sent a day earlier by MOH on updates of the HFMD situation in Singapore, she said.

Al-Amin Education took issue, however, with how the article mentioned that the centre could not be contacted for comment, suggesting that it “tried to avoid the press intentionally”, according to its lawyer Anthony Netto from Bernard & Rada Law Corporation.

When the lawyer asked Ms Salma why the article was published even though she could not contact the plaintiff, she said it would be “very irresponsible of us not to publish the information the next day because children’s lives were at stake”.

The hearing continues on Thursday.

- TODAY/yt