Maria Hertogh Riots(1950)

The Maria Hertogh Riots, otherwise known as Nadrah Riots took place on 11 December 1950 in Singapore. It consisted of both outraged Muslims who resented the court's decision to give the custody of Maria Hertogh(Then age 13) back to her biological Catholic Dutch parents even though she was raised as a Muslim under the care of Aminah Bte Mohamed, whom she regarded as her own mother. This court order had a lot of media coverage and therefore were featured in many newspapers.

The court also annulled Maria's marriage to a Muslim teacher even though she was a willing party and photos of Maria in a Christian Convent sparked off even more anger among the Muslim community.

Therefore, Muslims were unhappy with the court as they thought the judges were biased against them. This also highlighted the fact that the crowd felt that the British were treating the locals unfairly, being more biased to the European and Eurasian communities which sparked off this riot.

The riots lasted until noon on 13 December with 18 killed, 173 injured and many properties damaged - The worst incident of its kind in Singapore.

This incident shows that racial riots are very easy to start, but there are dire consequences involved. We should not take what we have for granted and we should all work together to promote a peaceful country.