Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam said that while the public is "entitled to believe in any religion, or not believe in any religion, and practise it in the way they want", an unregistered Singapore chapter of a South Korean religious cult is being investigated as they may have crossed the line "into criminality or potential public security issues".

It is linked to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony (SCJ) in South Korea.

This investigation into the chapter has been accelerated, as the same church is involved with a very large number of Covid-19 cases.

Investigation accelerated

The church has been accused of infiltrating and disrupting established Korean churches by using deception and secrecy to trick people into becoming involved with them.

According to a news release by MHA on Feb. 28, five South Korean nationals and two Singaporeans are assisting with the ongoing local investigations.

Shanmugam who spoke to the media yesterday on Feb. 28, said:

"There was reason to believe that people were being misled and defrauded into certain actions, and the cult was behind it even though they put up front companies to carry out their actions. So that attracted security attention and investigations started.

At this stage, we accelerated the investigations, because coincidentally, in South Korea, the same cult is involved with a very large number of COVID-19 cases. So we decided to accelerate, and that’s why the announcement has been made today. MHA officials are continuing their investigations at this point."

SCJ was founded by South Korean national Lee Man-Hee in 1984.

It has been accused by several countries of being a cult, due to its unorthodox teachings.

MHA believes that Singapore’s SCJ chapter has used similar deceptive recruitment methods, such as using front entities to target Christian youths and young adults, who have to comply with instructions to conceal the existence of SCJ locally and their involvement with it.

Not a sizeable threat

When asked about the threat that the group poses in Singapore, however, Shanmugam assured that the threat level is not high "because we have picked it up fairly quickly".

The group in Singapore is also "not that sizeable", with less than 100 members locally.

He reiterated that the activities of the group, however,  would be "inimical" - harm - the broader public, and investigations into their activities are continuing.

On Feb. 29, 2020, 594 more cases of the virus were reported in South Korea, bringing the total number of infections to a whopping 2,931.

A large majority of the cases and the biggest cluster in South Korea so far is from Daegu linked to SCJ, where a female worshipper has been dubbed a “super-spreader”.

MHA's news release also stated that interviews with members of the SCJ in Singapore who have been called up so far found that they have not been in recent physical contact with persons from the Daegu cluster.

Top image via Shincheonji's website