ANKARA 

Singapore has banned a theater play for glamorizing drug abuse and undermining the country’s anti-drug laws, local media reported on Friday.

The country's media content regulator, the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA), barred Singapore theater company Wild Rice from staging a dramatized reading of Homepar, citing concerns that the updated script glamorizes drug abuse and undermines the country’s anti-drug policies, the local English daily Strait Times reported.

The ban was imposed just one day before the play's premiere, with the company saying the play does not condone or glorify substance abuse.

However, the IMDA said the revised version of the script, submitted on June 5, deviated significantly from an earlier script assessed on April 21, which met classification standards and was cleared for staging with an R18 rating.

“The new material depicts and glamorizes drug abuse and portrays an undercover Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) officer shielding abusers from detection,” the authority said in a statement.

“It undermines Singapore’s anti-drug policy, our drug rehabilitation regime, and public confidence in the CNB. Performances that undermine Singapore’s national interest are not permitted.”

The IMDA said Singapore’s firm stance against drugs remains unchanged.

The Wild Rice expressed deep disappointment that a developmental work has been thrust into the public spotlight and judged as if it were a complete and finished work.

Singapore is one of only a few countries, including China and North Korea, that impose the death penalty for drug offenses.

Anyone caught trafficking more than 500 grams of cannabis or 15 grams of heroin is sentenced to death.

The Southeast Asian country resumed executions in March 2022 after a hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic and has carried out 24 executions, the most recent in April of this year.

*Writing by Aamir Latif