Protection from Harassment Act 2014

The Protection from Harassment Act 2014 (POHA) is a statute of the Parliament of Singapore that criminalizes harassment, stalking, and other anti-social behaviour. The law is designed specifically to make acts of cyberbullying and online harassment a criminal offence. It also marks the significancy of installation of noise barriers and privacy screens in the MRT to deter harassment and awarded to Precise Development Pte Ltd in March 2013, and also another tender was awarded to CKH Thomas on September 2014.

Overview
The Act abolished the common law tort of harassment, replaced by its statutory provisions. It also replaced sections 13A to 13D of the Miscellaneous Offences (Public Order and Nuisance) Act, and expanded the scope to cover acts conducted and increased the penalties to include sentences. The Act is intended to cover both intentional and unintentional, and has extra-territorial jurisdiction for certain offences which include online acts by the defendant if the complainant was in Singapore at the time of the offence and the defendant knew or should have known of that fact. The new law is also designed to be more accessible for the public than previous laws: for instance provisions are now made for alleged victims to apply a protection order against the accused persons, and separate expedited protection orders can be applied in extreme cases.

A new offence was introduced under this Act. In addition anyone who abuses any public servant and public service worker, including staff from the public transport industry, can be prosecuted under this Act and sentenced to imprisonment for up to a year and a fine.

Uses of the Act
The Ministry of Manpower (Singapore), National Trades Union Congress and Singapore National Employers Federation are at present the primary institutions in fighting and deterring workplace harassment.

Since the year of the Act's commencement, 80 reports were filed and a handful of PPOs applied for. Though the State Courts of Singapore encourage the integrated usage of mediation, known as an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) method, to a way of resolving a dispute without going for a trial in court at the State Courts Centre for Dispute Resolution. ADR is a flexible process in which a neutral mediator facilitates the parties' settlement negotiations, to help them reach their own solution. The focus of ADR is on finding solutions that will meet the parties' concerns. The mediator will not make a decision concerning who is at fault in the dispute. The mediators in this Centre are State Courts Judges who have been specially appointed and trained in mediation, and court volunteers who are trained and accredited by the State Courts and Singapore Mediation Centre.

Almost all cases are amicably resolved at the SCCDR to thrash and sort things out.

For relational disputes, the State Courts may refer to mediation in the State Courts Centre for Dispute Resolution in other relational disputes, including Magistrate's Complaints or applications under the Protection from Harassment Act.

Within two months of the Act's commencement, 79 reports were filed for harassment and 13 protection orders applied for. The first expedited protection order was reportedly issued in January 2015 to remove captions from two videos uploaded by the defendant.

In February 2015, Singaporean blogger Xiaxue filed a protection order against online satirical group SMRT Ltd (Feedback). About a month later, blogger and author Grace Tan filed a protection order against Xiaxue.

In March 2015, former child actor Amos Yee was charged under section (4)(1) of the Act for uploading a video to YouTube which allegedly "contained remarks about Mr Lee Kuan Yew which was intended to be heard and seen by persons likely to be distressed" by the clip. The remarks were also described as "insulting" in the wake of Lee's death. However, this charge was dropped in April 2015.

Also since May 2015, the Ministry of Defence obtained a protection order against The Online Citizen. Appeals are still ongoing over the context whether the Government of Singapore is eligible as a 'person' to apply for a protection order against any individual.