Singapore bans gay website

It appears that the Media Development Authority is more than happy to practice the banning and fining of websites and web material without so much as a court order. What power from upon high has given the MDA the authority to decide what people can or cannot see? Surely this is yet a further undermining of freedom of expression in Singapore.

There are millions of websites that breach "the Internet Code of Practice, which governs the content of websites in Singapore." Here is another site openly available http://gay.date.com/gay-personals/singapore-singapore.htm. The MDA are applying this code of practice in an arbitrary manner without recourse to proper due process.

All it takes are "several complaints" from so called concerned yet highly misinformed homophobics claiming that the site will "entice young boys to join this lifestyle". The misinformed image of gay men preying on young boys paints an image that gay equals paedophile. An image that has been reinforced by The Straits Times article. This can only be viewed as an attack by the MDA on homosexuality and the continued drive by the government to ostracise the gay community from Singapore.

Some people may be 'offended' by homosexuality but simple offence should not entail banning and fining.

It further undermines the claim by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong "I don't think we are homophobic."

Yes you are, and you openly promote homophobia.

From The Age
October 28, 2005 - 11:01AM

Authorities in Singapore banned a gay website after receiving complaints about the promotion of promiscuous homosexual behaviour and recruitment of underage boys for sex and nude photography, news reports say.

A second website, titled "Meet Gay Singapore Friends", was warned by the Media Development Authority (MDA) to remove offensive content and fined 5000 Singapore dollars ($A3886), the Straits Times said.

Web users in Singapore could no longer access the banned site, which is hosted overseas, from their home computers, the MDA said. It was put on a list of 100 banned websites, including 98 containing pornographic materials and two promoting religious extremism.

Spokesman Kwan Sui Fen said the MDA took action after receiving "several complaints".

Investigations showed the two sites breached the Internet Code of Practice, which governs the content of websites in Singapore.

The banned overseas site also provided listings of public swimming pools without shower doors and pickup places for casual sex, information about mass orgies and explicit personal advertisements recruiting underage boys for sex or nude photography, the report said.

"The way the sites glamorise a promiscuous gay lifestyle and try to entice young boys to join this lifestyle ... is very wrong," the newspaper quoted Ricky Lee, a 33-year-old software programmer and one of the complainants, as saying.

The banned site's registered members grew from 60,000 last year, when Lee stumbled upon it, to more than 330,000 this year.

The MDA has referred the banned website to police, but lawyers noted that trying to make the operator take the website down could be tough since it is run from abroad.

An annual gay and lesbian beach party, which drew international revellers to Singapore's Sentosa Island for four years, was banned by police in August, forcing it to move to the Thai resort of Phuket in November.

Police declared the event "contrary to public interest" in an apparent departure from the gradual acceptance of gays and lesbians into the social mainstream in recent years.