Kokila Annamalai Charged Under POFMA

Anti-death penalty activist Kokila Annamalai will be charged in court on Thursday, April 23, 2026, for failing to comply with a correction direction issued under the Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act (POFMA).

The charge stems from posts made by Annamalai on her Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) accounts on October 2 and 3, 2024, in which she alleged that the Singapore government schedules and stays executions arbitrarily without regard for due legal process, and that the state does not bear the legal burden of proving a drug trafficking charge against an accused person.

On October 5, 2024, the POFMA office issued a correction direction requiring her to carry correction notices on those social media posts. We see alleged that she did not comply with this direction.

Annamalai, aged 37, will face one count of failing to comply with the POFMA direction without reasonable excuse. She is the second person to be charged under POFMA, following Jay Ish’haq Rajoo, who was charged with the more serious offence of communicating false statements of fact under the Act.

The correction direction did not require her to remove or edit her original posts, but only to publish a correction notice providing access to the correct facts on the government’s Factually website.

The charge is being brought by the POFMA office, which confirmed in a statement released on April 21, 2026, that proceedings would commence on April 23. The case will be heard in the State Courts.