Singabloodypore Is Being Researched

As is Mr Wang I see. The Singapore blogosphere seems to have burst into flames of rumour and fear. As far as I am aware the IPS is a partially business funded and partially government funded think tank. Now by Singabloodypore being researched what I mean is that I have been invited to attend an interview on the topic of the blogging commmunity and possible effects it may have had on the recent elections.

The interview will be conducted face-to-face which as all you smart readers out there know, means in the same geographic location.

So when the request arrived in my inbox a few weeks ahead of when I had planned to spend a few days in Singapore I thought why not, what harm could it do?

"The questions we are interested in include the kinds of space that the Internet helps create as an alternative to the mainstream media, and whether and how the Internet contributes to democratic processes. We have been archiving several dozen blogs during the election period, including yours, with a view to analyzing their content and features. But we would also like to have a quantitative sense of how big the impact of blogs like yours is - and would be grateful if you could grant us an interview either face to face or by email ...

Singapore

Govt promises review of new media, 'lighter touch' in next GE

First spotted on Mr Wang.

A related "news" article - Government to review media policies for next GE By Farah Abdul Rahim, Channel NewsAsia

THE Government will review the way it manages new media such as the Internet and podcasts and work towards a 'lighter touch' in the next election, said Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Dr Lee Boon Yang.

Speaking at the 5th Annual PR Academy Conference on new media, Dr Lee said the Government accepts that Internet and new media are evolving and even more people will be net-savvy in five years' time.

'So our policies must also evolve. We will review our policies on the Internet and new media during the election period bearing in mind the changes taking place,' he said.

Call me paranoid.... but is that a promise or a threat?

'Moving forward, we will consider how to better embrace these changes so that by the next GE, we may be able to adopt a lighter touch approach during the election period.'

1. Why should there be a "touch" in the first place?
2. The "touch" that they had this elections obviously didn't affect many bloggers. So I'm a little confused here.

Dr Lee defended the Government's 'cautious' approach during the recent May 6 General Election, saying that certain restrictions must remain to keep the electoral process on an even keel.

Even? Even? Since when have the opposition parties even approached the equality mark by five miles?

Election advertising, for example, was restricted to political parties and candidates.

Which of course, wasn't carried by our reliable media.

'Were we wrong to have adopted a cautious approach? Here, I do not expect a consensus. But my assessment is that we were not wrong to have taken a more cautious approach,' he said.

'While podcasts and videocasts for political advertisements were disallowed during the election period, political parties were able to make their presence felt in cyberspace making good use of their websites to publicise their programmes. This was on top of the ample coverage given by the mainstream media.'

*proceeds to choke on her biscuit*

Dr Lee said interest was also high in other areas such as in individual blogs, podcasts and videocasts. Many blogs ran commentaries, satires, polls, and photos of election rallies.

'The emergence of new media platforms and the fact that many of our young people are tech-savvy supported such intense interest. Many also see the new media as increasing the political space to speak up on the issues brought up during the election campaign,' he said.

'I accept that some will argue that we should let the people be the judge and form their own opinion by accessing all sorts of information and arguments. I agree that this is not without merit. But it is only valid when information available on the Internet is equally reliable and accurate.

Equally reliable and accurate as WHAT? The local media? Now that would be REALLY unbiased.

'Hence we have adopted a cautious approach in engaging the new media during the election period.'

Dr Lee said said the Government adopted a 'light touch approach' in dealing with the everyday use of the internet and will continue to do so and accept that the Internet and new media will remain largely a 'free-for-all'.

'However during the election period when such free-for-all may result in undesirable situations, we cannot take a completely hands-off approach,' he said.

And we come to the conclusion, the warning hidden within the sugary-sweet message. Next elections, we bloggers better watch out.

Singapore

Malu-lah, Mati-lah—Seditious Speech As Entertainment

The text and video are from Lee Cane You. A new blog by someone who appears to be immune from the self-censorship virus.

I added the music and the titles. The moving footage was cut from Martyn See's great, but disturbing documentary Singapore Rebel which is BANNED in Singapore. It was supposed to be screened at a Singapore film festival, but the festival director was threatened by Thugs Of The State. In my view, there is no loss of honour if one capitulates to absolute power who cannot, or will not differentiate between bullying and justice. Producing political films is BANNED in Singapore. Yessir folks, another violation of individual and property rights by the good-old-state and its tin-pot despots. I urge you to help Martyn See by signing the petition. To visit Martyn See's blog click here.

Frankly, I'm EMBARRASSED that Singaporeans have resorted to "begging" their government for liberty. In any "civilised" country, the government terrorcrats who bully peaceful citizens would be arrested, charged in court and thrown into jail—where they so rightfully belong.

Update May 25, 2006: Audio mp3 of the music in podcast format here. [mp3]

Singapore

THE POWER OF IDEAS

Not that we have a chance in hell of winning in a section which has us competing with opendemocracy. And before anyone asks who nominated the site - it was I, hopelessly self-promoting. The main criteria for entry was that one of those involved on the project has to be resident in the UK and I am aware that there are at least two of us living in Britain.

When digital technologies intersect with civic life, they can impact a small community or an entire nation. The New Media Awards celebrate those UK new media projects that benefit society, government or democracy.

The theme of this year’s awards is The Power of Ideas – with a special emphasis on innovation, usability and efficiency. New media can have a positive effect by pushing boundaries and making information widely accessible.

Nominations

We are seeking nominations for any UK digital, web or mobile technology project that is creating positive change. It’s free to nominate and you can nominate as many projects as you like! Simply fill out our short, online nomination form.

Closing date: 31 May 2006

Singapore

Request for Investigation Corrupted Practice concerning General Election 2006

From Sg Review.

date: 05/26/06

from: Yap Keng Ho ,

to: Soh Kee Hean -director Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau
subject: Request for Investigation Corrupted Practice concerning General Election 2006

I took part in GE2006 as Election Agent for candidate Chee Siok Chin of Sembawang GRC wef 10.May.2006, I am also a voter of Tampines GRC, but I am requesting CPIB for an investigation as a member of public. I was prepared to stand for the same election myself but I lack some assenter for the nomination. I am sure you are already aware that miss Chee Siok Chin had already filed complain to Election Judge under parliamentary election act asking for the election to be declared as invalid.

May I bring to your attention that there is possible corrupted practice in GE2006, in that Lee Hsien Loong both as Rep of Singapore PM cum Finance Minister & GE2006 candidate have committed himself in VOTE BUYING during GE2006.

This is in particular through the Progress Package by which voters of entire Singapore had been arranged to receive money payable on 1.May.2006 just few days before the polling. Over a million voters and or their family members had received money ranged from hundreds to thousands of dollars, just days before they had to cast their votes.

This inevitably have the strongest effect of VOTE BUYING, in favor to the ruling party which Lee Hsien Loong and his father Lee Kuan Yew are both belong to, and both stood as candidates for GE2006.

Lee Hsien Loong being the finance minister & Rep of Singapore PM proposed and implemented the Progress Package, through which voters are given S$2.6 billion in total sum, and he is the PM who is almost the only person who can initiate the dissolve of parliament and call for election. And that the dates of withdrawing the Progress Package and the polling day are only apart by less than a week, so the arrangement that voters are given the handout of S$2.6 billion just before casting their vote have to be the intention of Lee Hsien Loong.

The criminal intention of vote buying is further affirmed by Lee Hsien Loong himself in his public statement during the election period as reported by the media that he talked about "fixing the oppositions" and "buying the votes". Please refer to affidavit filed by Chee Siok Chin.

I plea your firm and thorough investigation regarding possible vote buying crime committed by Lee Hsien Loong, and any possible involvement by his father Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in this General Election. Please assure me that your investigation will be fair and of integrity despite the fact that Lees are your direct superiors. CPIB is law enforcement bureau and no one should be above the law. I plea with you to act accordingly to uphold justice and equality.

I request you also to publicly announce your findings after investigation.

As I understand as long as there is any criminal intent an action committed especially involving huge sum of money paid to voters when candidates including Lee Hsien Loong himself stand to be voted and return to power, it is to be regarded strictly as a crime. I believe that many individuals had been charged in Singapore based on their criminal intents, and in Singapore's court it is the accused person's burden to prove that he / she is innocent while being presumed as guilty.

The fact that the S$2.6 billion is not private fund, but entrusted in the care of Lee Hsien Loong under his capacity as PM cum Finance Minister, show that he is in position with the most ability to abuse this fund for the electoral gain of his ruling party PAP as well as his father and himself. This is the fact that had disturbed me the most.

Acting for myself according to my conscience for fairness; justice & equality, I made this request to you as director of Corrupted Practices Investigation Bureau to perform your official duty according to law and constitution of our republic.

Thank You,

k.h.yap

Singapore

Singapore's Unique Multiculturalism

From SBS Radio - World View
30.5.2006 17:45:44

Singapore's government keeps a tight grip on many things.

Multiculturalism and religious tolerance is one of them.

The city-state is so tiny that harmony between the three main ethnic groups is essential to maintaining the economy.

After race riots in 1969, the ruling party put in place firm multicultural policies.

As Rebecca Henschke reports, the government controls where people live, the make-up of political parties, and what languages young people learn at school.

Singapore

JBJ hits out at New Workers' Party

Veteran politician says current WP should confront more

His fiercest opponent — Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew — has labelled his style as anything from "gutter politics" to "street fighter" tactics. Opposition veteran J B Jeyaretnam prefers to describe his methods as "confrontational" instead.
But there is one observation about his approach that Mr Jeyaretnam shares with MM Lee: That it is no longer a feature of the Workers' Party.

And, looking at the recent General Election (GE), Mr Jeya-retnam doubts it will make a comeback within the party he used to lead. He said: "I can't see it happening under (secretary-general) Low Thia Khiang. (He) hasn't shown himself … willing or ready to take on the PAP on the most crucial issue of the system of government in this country."

Mr Lee had said last month at the 50th anniversary dinner of the Foreign Correspondents Association that Mr Low is moving in the right direction after having "got rid" of Mr Jeyaretnam and his "Third World" politics. The latter, though, is not making any concessions about his approach.

"I don't believe confrontational politics is wrong, which is what the PAP would seem to imply. They talk about constructive criticism. Of course, to them, constructive criticism is criticism within the parameters they've laid down," he said.

Which is why, he added, Mr Lee was pleased to see the back of someone like him who would challenge the system. But is the veteran Opposition politician calling time on politics now?

"I haven't quite decided. A lot will, of course, depend on my health and if my strength will permit me to continue," said the 80-year-old, who had "great hopes" of getting discharged from his bankruptcy to contest the GE. He admitted that, with the polls over, the urgency to pay his debts from the lawsuits against him had passed. "Yes, I'd like to be discharged, but it's no longer a pressing matter," said Mr Jeyaretnam, who was speaking about the GE at an FCA luncheon last week.

These elections, with more media publicity of the Opposition in the lead-up to the polls than in previous elections, raised expectations that "some real issues would be debated", he said, citing issues about the widening wage gap, unemployment, workers' rights, healthcare, education and the cost of living. But he did not see this happen. If it had and the WP had a real go at the issues, "they might have captured Aljunied".

And Mr Jeyaretnam is not very optimistic about the Opposition's chances in a Group Representation Constituency at the next GE. "The flagship constituency didn't do as well as the flagship constituencies in the previous elections under the WP," he said, referring to the 1988, 1991 and 1997 polls.

In those elections, the WP got 49.11 per cent of the Eunos vote, 47.62 per cent in Eunos again and 45.18 per cent in Cheng San, respectively. In this GE, the WP won 43.91 per cent in Aljunied. Nonetheless, he does think that democratic ideals are on the rise among young Singaporeans.

"Going around, selling my book in Singapore, I've had hundreds of students buying the book," he related. "But, I've also noticed this: Once they leave the universities … either their energies or their enthusiasm are sapped as a result, I suppose, of the seen and unseen pressures of society.

He cited family pressure and the climate of fear as the main counterbalances to the desire for change and greater freedoms. Although more young Singaporeans are joining the Opposition, it is not enough to convince him that the fear factor is ebbing. He has a sterner litmus test — one that is true to his style of politics.

"It's when you have people who are prepared to stand up, march through the streets of Singapore, hold a public rally. Then they can say 'we are no longer afraid'," he told Today.

By his own admission, it is a style that seems very much out of fashion. - /sh

Guest Workers or Indentured Labor? Life in Singapore's Little India

From New America Media

SAMAR, News Feature, Rupali Ghosh, May 26, 2006

SINGAPORE - After a late dinner, sometime close to midnight, a small group of us make our way through the grid of narrow lanes that is at the heart of Singapore's Little India district. The street side restaurants that do brisk business during the lunch and dinner rush are winding down and there are few people on the streets at this hour.

The waiters, nearly all Sri Lankan Tamils at a Chettinad dhaba we walk past, are wiping down the plastic tables with wet cloths, piling chairs on top of tables in that classic end-of-day small eatery gesture and dealing with the last dinner guests and their endless demands: "Filter coffee irruka?" asks one Tamilian diner ("Do you have filter coffee?") "Roti—two more," says another though he has been told that the kitchen is closed for the night. Behind the old-fashioned cash register of the dhaba, the night manager pauses picking his teeth with a wooden toothpick as he instructs a young man cleaning out the sweet counter to pack all the remaining mysore pak sweets into three cardboard boxes. More work for the young man who has been on his feet since five that morning.

Little India is one of Singapore's must-see tourist attractions. Anchored by the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple, Tekka Market and Mustafa's famous 24-hour mall, this maze of streets is crowded with small eateries, shop houses, sweet shops and ethnic grocery stores specializing in produce from the Indian subcontinent. The name Little India is an inaccurate guidebook generalization as the area correctly represents the food and culture (to an extent) of Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and India. The area is also the nerve center of Singapore's subcontinental migrant labor force and Little India descriptions frequently appearing in tourist guides carry a light warning about Sunday evenings "when the migrant labor force comes out on the streets of Little India."

Warnings also abound from chatty taxi drivers—usually Chinese or Malaysian—one who helpfully alerted us to the big crowd on Desker Road (the red light quarter of Little India bordered by specialty Indian restaurants and frequented by migrant workers on weekend nights): "Don't go to Desker Road side, very crowded with black Indians on Saturday night."

In Singaporean society, where racism runs just below the surface of everyday life, there is a tendency to look down upon "black Indians" a derogatory term used by the majority Straits Chinese population that refers to Sri Lankan Tamils—one of Singapore's three primary ethnic groups (the other two groups being the Chinese and Malays).

Naskar came to Singapore from Bangladesh one year ago. He works in the kitchen of a small eatery in Little India. His workday usually starts at 5am, when he accompanies another worker to the wet produce markets. Not a professional cook yet, Naskar does all the routine backbreaking kitchen jobs like peeling and dicing vegetables, cleaning and cutting fish, kneading and rolling luchi and chapati dough in the hot, noisy endlessly active restaurant kitchen. Probably the busiest times of the day are after the lunch and dinner rush when he is on utensil wash-up duty with another worker.

Naskar looks forward to Sunday nights when he goes down to Mustafa's with other restaurant workers after work. He does not get a day-off, which is the usual practice among the unskilled labor workforce throughout most of Singapore. Naskar's family lives in Mymensingh, Bangladesh and he sent money back home twice in the last year.

He doesn't disclose his wages but hopes his work contract will be renewed soon for another two years. According to Singapore labor laws, a migrant worker must leave the country as soon as his work permit is cancelled or expires. Though Singapore has historically been heavily dependent on migrant labor, or foreign workers as they are called here, for its economic progress, there is little open dialogue about the living conditions and rights of these workers both in the government-controlled media under the umbrella of the Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) and in the general public space.

Singapore's Ministry of Manpower (MoM) oversees all aspects of issuing work permits for foreign workers. According to government guidelines, unskilled and semi-skilled foreign workers are issued the R Pass (R1 and R2). The R1 pass is issued to semi-skilled foreign workers who possess some degree of practical training. The R2 pass is issued to unskilled foreign workers. R pass holders are not allowed to bring their immediate family members into the country. They are also subject to a security bond and medical examination requirements. If an employer fails to pay the required security bond, work permits are cancelled and the worker must leave Singapore within a week. In addition, the employer must post a S$5000 security bond with the government to guarantee the "good behavior and eventual repatriation" of the foreign manual worker.

The insecurity of life as an R Pass holder in Singapore is pretty much how life is on the other side of any guest worker program. For the host country, a guest worker program is a good deal: a wealthy country gets sufficient supplies of cheap labor to do all the jobs no one else wants to do, without having to invest anything in the welfare of that labor force. For the worker, it is a period of hard (oftentimes demeaning or dangerous) labor with the ability to occasionally remit money back home, a constant sense of alienation and isolation heightened by an enforced separation from home and family and no legal rights to speak of. Interestingly, this is exactly the kind of life the United States senate foresees for its 12 million undocumented workers sometime in the very near future.

In Singapore, where most of the migrant labor falls under the category of manual worker—either domestic or construction worker—the insecurity of the R Pass is heightened by the S$ 5000 security bond, that often becomes the proverbial sword of Damocles over the head of the migrant laborer, especially in the case of domestic foreign workers.

Domestic Foreign Workers (DFWs) is a face-saving euphemism for household servants that in Singapore refers to maids who are generally treated more like slaves than free human beings. Domestic worker abuse in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong has been widely documented by international NGOs like Human Rights Watch in the past. Abuse which is so rampant that it is now considered normal includes keeping domestic workers housebound so that outside human contact cannot "spoil them"; making them work long hours; and not giving workers a single day off. Actually, a monthly day-off is offered to maids in many homes, but if they work on that day-off they are given an extra S$20, so they usually end up working through the day-off for the extra cash. In Singapore, an Indonesian maid earns around S$200 a month—though ex-pat employers pay quite a bit more, as well as usually offer better working conditions. Filipino maids earn higher salaries, ranging between S$300–400. Sri Lankan and Nepali maids earn around the same, or less than Indonesian maids. [US$ 1 = S$ 1.60]

Off and on half-hearted debates on the need for a weekly day-off are published in the comment pages of the Straits Times newspaper (the largest selling English daily in Singapore published by the Singapore Press Holdings), but the general consensus is with the Ministry of Manpower—domestic workers shouldn't get a single day off as this is cruel and unfair to elderly people and children dependent on these workers; also the absence of domestic help will disrupt the schedule of working mothers and impact productivity in their white-collar jobs.

Srimala, 37, works with an Indian family living in an HDB housing estate (government housing) on Farrer Road. She came from Sri Lanka and says she was fortunate to be chosen by the Indian family from the maid agency with which she was registered.

Srimala has been living with the Indian family for three years now. They have been the longest three years of her life. Dressed in a navy blue ankle length shapeless sarong like skirt and grey shirt, her lined and weathered face looks closer to fifty than forty. She talks in short furtive sentences about her life and will not disclose any details she thinks may reveal the identity of her employers. Her employers live in a five-bedroom apartment on the twelfth floor of the housing estate. She works for a family of six people: two elderly parents, their son and his wife, one 10-year-old son and a little baby. She usually works from 5 am to after midnight.

Her early morning chores include cleaning the apartment, making the beds, washing the windows (of the twelfth floor apartment) before preparing a traditional breakfast for the family.

Srimala accompanies the elderly grandmother to the supermarket everyday to shop for fresh vegetables; she cooks the meals; sorts out the washing (done in a washing machine but manually dried out in the sun on two long poles attached to the windows as is the custom in most HDB apartments); bathes the baby; makes numerous cups of coffee and tea for the grandfather and finally washes the dishes. She sleeps between three and four hours a night, does not get a single day off and yet says she is fortunate to be chosen by an Indian family. The reason being that local Chinese families are known to be even stricter employers going to almost insanely inhuman lengths to keep their maids virtual house prisoners. Srimala is allowed out on her own (whenever she has the time, which is usually never). She is also allowed to call her family back in Sri Lanka from a public pay phone, as she is not allowed to own a cell phone, and send them letters. She has been given an old blanket on which she can sleep in the kitchen and has never been beaten or abused verbally by her employers.

Srimala knows fellow-Sri Lankan women who are not so fortunate. A younger woman from her own village employed by a Chinese family in another HDB block not too far from where Srimala is, can never go outdoors without her Chinese mistress with her. So the only places she goes to are the local wet market and shopping center where she carries her mistress's shopping bags. She does similar work to Srimala without a single day off, except that she also has to wash the windows from the outside (of a sixth floor apartment), clean her employer's car and iron a hamper of clothes everyday. She has to sleep in the room of one of the teenage daughters of the house, which means she needs to sleep when the girl is ready to sleep (usually after 1 am) and cannot even sleep in privacy. She is also regularly verbally abused by her employer and is threatened that she will be "kicked out of the country" as the employers will withdraw the security bond they have posted.

The woman is not allowed any contact with her family and is never left by herself as her employers are convinced she will use the opportunity to mix with "bad men and get pregnant." Also, her hair is regularly cut by the employer as she feels the woman's "long hair is dirty and falls all over the apartment."

The saddest thing is that for a domestic worker like this unfortunate woman and Srimala there is no recourse or even a place where they can go and lodge a complaint against inhuman employers. These women are too scared to take any official action with the Ministry of Manpower (which does operate a kind of help-line service). In the almost total absence of any non-governmental agency to help them, they usually just suffer in silence.

Filipino domestic workers are more organized in Singapore these days, especially after the 1995 Flor Contemplacion case. Flor was a Filipino domestic worker who was arrested for the murder of another domestic worker, Delia Maga and Maga's employer's child Nicolas in 1991. At the time, according to media reports, the Singapore police claimed that Flor had committed the numbers after "snapping" from the strain of her dawn to midnight routine for three years with her Singaporean employers. Flor was executed in 1995 resulting in an angry and loud protest from the Philippines—spearheaded by Filipino NGOs in the Philippines and around the world that believed Flor had not been given a fair trial. The Singapore government was accused of acting insensitively and the entire Philippine embassy staff in Singapore was sacked for reacting too slowly to Flor's case. This incident considerably damaged Singaporean diplomatic relations with the Philippines and also led to more stringent regulations by the Ministry of Manpower regarding FDWs in Singapore. Currently the MoM runs orientation programs for Singaporeans who want to employ FDWs. The programs are supposed to educate and sensitize prospective employers about domestic workers and how they should be treated.

The Filipina women meet regularly at the Lucky Plaza center in Orchard, Singapore's central shopping district, where there is some amount of counseling available. However, Sri Lankan, Nepalese and Burmese maids (in much smaller numbers than Filipinos and Indonesians) lack any sort of cohesive organization and are usually exploited both by their employers and the agencies that recruit them.

Construction workers are probably the most organized of unskilled foreign labor in Singapore—and also the best treated with regulated work hours, periodic health screening and some protection against exploitation. Workers in the cleaning industry (garbage disposal workers and sweepers who clean the streets and buildings) could do with some of that organization.

Yunis Mohammad is a contracted cleaner at a Holland Village HDB housing complex. All Singapore apartments are fitted with a garbage disposal chute. The idea is that regular household waste is required to be bagged securely and dropped down the chute. Big items like packing materials, newspapers, old books, etc. are supposed to be collected and disposed off at the "big garbage collection bins" placed somewhere within the complex conveniently accessible to all residents. Glass and other dangerous waste should also be placed in these bins. In practice, Yunis says, residents "throw everything down the chute, including glass bottles, big books, newspapers everything." The glass bottles naturally shatter meaning that the chute cleaners regularly get their hands cut and slashed with pieces of glass.

Yunis who usually a works a 6am-6pm shift with a short afternoon break, is from Bangladesh and lives in one of the dormitory-style buildings rented out to workers in Little India.

He has had his hands cut countless times on shards of glass and broken bottlenecks. The stink of decomposing garbage in the chute is nauseating and stays with Yunis long after his 12-hour shift is done. He describes cleaning the chute as a hellish job as most often tenants have barely secured their trash in the garbage bags and everything from soiled sanitary napkins to leftover meals and half-eaten rotting fruit needs to be manually cleaned out of the chute bins.

Yunis chose to become a contract cleaner as that was the only job available to him, and given that sending him from Bangladesh to Singapore cost his family more than they could afford in agent fees and other charges, he needed to begin repaying the debt as soon as he could. Also, Yunis knows the reality of his life and says he "would never make this much money in Dhaka." When he returns home on visits he takes back things that will be useful—electric fans, wristwatches, clothes, kitchen utensils and gold jewelry. He says he can buy all of these things at the best prices from Mustafa's.

In the absence of any grassroots movement in Singapore that can provide a support structure to migrant labor in terms of counseling, legal and medical advice and other assistance, places like Mustafa's in Little India have become surrogate social clubs for these workers. Mustafa's is a sprawling, four-story mall that is a combination of hyper-mart, foreign exchange center and social space with coffee stalls and eating places on its premises. Being open 24/7 makes it convenient for workers to meet here even at the end of a long workday.

In Singapore, NGO activity and advocacy for migrant labor has a brief, rather unproductive history. The little activism that existed in the late Eighties was effectively stubbed out with the so-called "Marxist Conspiracy Case" in 1987, and in the years that followed even socially aware Singaporeans have been reluctant to involve themselves in migrant labor issues because of its "socialist overtones." In May, 1987, 22 people were arrested under the Internal Security Act for allegedly threatening state and national interests. The arrested included Catholic social workers and lay workers at the Geylang Catholic Center for Foreign Workers. The Center used to lobby for better wages and more humane employment conditions for foreign workers of all faiths. However, the Church was seen as a "cover for political agitation" and the Geylang Center was shut down. As a result of this incident, religious organizations and other civil society groups have steered clear of migrant labor issues.

With the Flor Contemplacion case of 1995, international attention was once again focused on migrant labor conditions in Singapore and the backlash from the case resulted in a gradual increase—to an extent—in networking and some advocacy for migrant, especially domestic workers here. Though, as said earlier, a lot of this organization really focuses on Filipino domestic workers and groups assisting them. It remains to be seen if other civic societies can take their cue from these organizations and work towards empowering people like Srimala and Yunis Mohammed.

After stints in Tokyo and Taipei Rupali Ghosh is currently based in Singapore. When not moving house, she works as a freelance journalist and editorial consultant for the Pacific Asia Resource Center.

Singapore

Overseas voting - Version PAP

Overseas voting - Version PAP
Damaso G Magbual
May 25, 06 2:23pm
Malaysiakini

Overseas voting was introduced in April 2001 ‘to provide Singaporeans with strong links to Singapore to have their say through their votes’.

However, a cursory reading of the provision of the law on overseas voting will tell us that it does not enfranchise overseas Singaporean citizens as a whole but only those who have direct (government employees) or indirect (employees of international organisations of which Singapore is a member) affiliation with the government.

There definitely is merit in the observation of a student in Canada when he said that there is “…unequal rights to vote for all Singaporeans … who are not associated with any government or public agency” referring to himself and all Singaporeans who are similarly situated.

Voting is a basic human right and not a privilege, which the state grants to its citizens. When the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of suffrage as universal, it means all citizens of a given state, who are not reasonably restricted by law, have the right to vote. A primary concern of the right of suffrage is participation and international norms favour expanding rather than restricting this right.

Principle of non-discrimination

Hence, Singaporeans who have no direct or indirect affiliation with the government staying overseas and are not allowed to vote are arbitrarily denied a basic human right. This violates the principle of non-discrimination in the treatment of voters’ eligibility, which is an essential characteristic of a free and fair election.

Some jurisdictions/democracies (India, Taiwan, Chile) do not grant their citizens residing outside the country voting rights. There are two basic reasons for this.

First, the setting up of systems and procedures on how the overseas citizens can vote on election day is in itself an administrative nightmare to the electoral body. Then there is the difficulty of designating the electoral district/constituency to which the votes will be assigned. Both reasons may not apply to Singapore. It is a known fact that the technological advance of Singapore is the envy of its Asian neighbours. Hence, setting up systems for overseas voting that will cover all Singaporeans should not pose any problem.

Secondly, the city/state has a limited number of districts/constituencies (23 SMCs and GRCs), unlike India, which is the biggest democracy in the world. Again, designating the district of an overseas voter should not present any problem given Singapore’s level of technological sophistication.

Some countries have certain restrictions on overseas voting but these restrictions are not on the right of citizens to vote. The restrictions are on their participation in a given election. France and the Philippines for instance, allow their overseas citizens to vote in some elections (national elections as against local elections) or for some positions (national versus local constituency). This avoids the difficulty of designating specific constituencies for the overseas votes.

Singapore restricts the rights of certain voters; the two examples cited restrict the type of election and the position to be voted upon. The former violates the basic principle of equality before the law and therefore discriminatory. The other two do not.

Discouraging support

The provisions of the Parliamentary Election Act that defines overseas voting is not only discriminatory to the overseas citizens but denies the political contestants who do not belong to the People’s Action Party a level playing field. Voting rights to overseas Singaporeans are limited to those with ties or affiliations with the government.

The PAP has been the dominant party - a virtual hegemony - since Singapore became independent. Those allowed to vote, since they are overseas by reason of their ties to the government are presumed if not expected to vote for the PAP. This certainly places the other parties at a distinct disadvantage.

The restriction on overseas voting to Singaporeans with ties to the government tends to confirm the perception that the PAP as the ruling party, has thrown at the opposition every possible obstacle to grow and develop as viable parties.

Too often changes in policies have almost always made it more difficult for opponents of the PAP to compete. The provision of block voting for the Group Representation Constituencies, the redrawing of political districts, and now the discriminatory provision of the overseas voting, all tend to confirm the impression that indeed the PAP has done everything to discourage support for the opposition.

The graduate student in Vancouver, Canada has a legitimate grievance in that the law is discriminatory. Hence, either the law allows all overseas citizens the right to vote or confine the right of suffrage only to citizens residing in the country. This is equality before the law!

DAMASAO G MAGBUAL is attached to the Bangkok-based Asian Network for Free Elections (Anfrel).

No wonder Singapore is the 83rd most democratic country in the world!

Singapore

Amnesty to target net repression

From the BBC

Internet users are being urged to stand up for online freedoms by backing a new campaign launched by human rights group Amnesty International.

Amnesty is celebrating 45 years of activism by highlighting governments using the net to suppress dissent.

The campaign will highlight abuses of rights the net is used for, and push for the release of those jailed for speaking out online.

It will also name hi-tech firms aiding governments that limit online protests.

Pledge bank

Called Irrepressible.info, the campaign will revolve around a website with the same name. While the human rights group has run separate campaigns about web repression and the jailing of net dissidents before now, Irrepressible.info will bring them all together.

It aims to throw light on the many different ways that the freedom to use the net is limited by governments.

For instance, said a spokesman for Amnesty, around the globe net cafes are being closed down, home PCs are being confiscated, chat in discussion forums is being watched and blogs are being censored or removed.


AMNESTY INTERNET PLEDGE
I believe the internet should be a force for political freedom, not repression. People have the right to seek and receive information and to express their peaceful beliefs online without fear or interference. I call on governments to stop the unwarranted restriction of freedom of expression on the internet and on companies to stop helping them do it
"The internet has become a new frontier in the struggle for human rights," said Kate Allen, UK director of Amnesty International.

"Its potential to empower and educate, to allow people to share and mobilise opinion has led to government crackdowns."

Ms Allen added that there were growing numbers of cases in which those who have turned to the net to discuss change or protest about government policies have been jailed for what they said.

For instance, she said, Chinese journalist Shi Tao is serving a 10-year jail sentence for sending an e-mail overseas which detailed the restrictions the Chinese government wanted to impose on papers writing about the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Hi-tech firm Yahoo helped identify the journalist via his e-mail account. Amnesty is calling for the jailed journalist to be released immediately.

Profit and principles

The campaign will seek to get net users to sign a pledge that opposes repressive use of the net. The pledges will be collated and presented to a meeting of the UN's Internet Governance Forum that is due to meet in Athens in November 2006.

Amnesty wants to get people using an icon in e-mail signatures or on websites that contains text from censored sites.

The group also wants to run an e-mail campaign to target companies to stop putting "profit before principles" and respect human rights everywhere they operate.

Reports will be prepared on those countries that place restrictions on what can be said online or use it to keep an eye on those expressing discontent.

"Irrepressible.info will harness the power of the internet and of individuals to oppose repression and stand up for free speech," said Ms Allen.

Singapore

Singapore Opposition Party to Fight Ban on Podcasting

From Podcasting News.

May 26, 2006

Defeated Singapore Democratic Party candidate Ms Chee Siok Chin has filed a summons in the High Court asking it to declare the results of the 2006 General Election null and void. She also wants the High Court to declare the ban on podcasting during the general election as unconstitutional.

"The banning of podcasting and blogging in GE 2006 amount to intimidation, vote-buying, and censorship which contravenes the Parliamentary Elections Act," said Chee Siok Chin.

In 2005, the Singapore Democratic Party adopted podcasting as a tool for political speech. Earlier this year, political podcasting, video podcasting and streaming video were banned in Singapore.

At the Singapore Democratic Party site, Chee Siok Chin explains why she is bring a suit against the ruling government:

The PAP has been the ruling party in Singapore for more than 40 years and has won more than a dozen elections, always in landslide victories.
Singaporeans must begin to question why this is so. The PAP will have you believe that opposition candidates lack credibility and integrity. Mr Lee Kuan Yew has gone as far as calling his political opponents "scum", "liar", "cheat", "hooligans" and other derogatory names.
This is, however, not the reason why the PAP continues to dominate parliament with more than 95 percent of the seats in the House. The real reason lies in the way the elections system is designed, and the way the PAP fights the elections.
This is why I have taken out an Originating Summons to examine the way the elections were conducted and to seek a declaration from the Supreme Court that the 2006 General Elections were unconstitutionally run, and therefore, null and void.

Singapore

Chee launches legal fund

Chee Siok Chin of the Singapore Democratic Party appeals for donations for her bid to declare the elections null and void, and for the defence against the recent libel lawsuit filed by the Cabinet against the Chee siblings.

The legal process, however, is very expensive. Each time I go to court to file documents, the process itself costs hundreds of dollars. It is estimated that we will spend at least $10,000 on filing fees alone.

This fight should be the fight of all Singaporeans who are concerned with transparency and democratic accountability. As such I ask you to do your part and contribute to the legal defence fund that I have set up to fight these two cases. If you feel that these are matters important enough, please give so that we can mount an effective legal campaign against the Lees and the PAP.

Chee has left her bank account details for ease of donations through bank transfer at the bottom of the SDP webpage.

Singapore

Singapore lightens up for tourists

SINGAPORE When Lee Chin Koon was a member in the 1930s, the Chinese Swimming Club here offered more than just laps in the pool. There was mah- jongg and blackjack, too.

"We Chinese are gamblers," he told club historians before his death in 1997. "If two lizards scale up a wall, someone would bet on them."

But what Lee's son, Lee Kuan Yew, remembered was how, after a losing night, his father would come home in a violent rage demanding his wife give him jewelry to pawn. When Lee Kuan Yew became the first prime minister of independent Singapore in 1965, he set about transforming this once-squalid seaport into a tidy industrial park by targeting vice. Cigarettes and alcohol were heavily taxed. Drugs traffickers were told they would be hanged. Casinos, naturally, were banned.

Times are changing once again. Lee Kuan Yew's son, Lee Hsien Loong, is now prime minister, and he is striving to shake Singapore's reputation as Asia's nanny state.

Really? Did someone liberalise Singapore while I wasn't looking?

With the country's basic manufacturing jobs shifting to China, Lee wants to stimulate tourism and other service industries by molding a more tolerant, fun-loving Singapore. And one of his signature projects - the world's most expensive casino complex - harks back more to his grandfather's Chinese Swimming Club than to his father's profit-perfect industrial landscape.

Last year, the government lifted its ban on casinos. Next month it is due to choose who will build the first of two planned resorts, a $3 billion extravaganza that will include a casino, an entertainment complex, a convention center and hotels. The list of bidders includes some of the biggest names in Las Vegas - Harrah's Entertainment, Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage.

Strait-laced Singapore and freewheeling Vegas make strange partners. But Singapore is betting that, in return for letting casino operators tap the Chinese penchant for gambling, it can create a world-class tourist attraction without sacrificing the low crime rate and clean image that make it so popular with multinational corporations.

A question among many casino operators is whether Singapore's vision of a sanitized casino culture risks bleaching out the components that attract gamblers and drive profitability. But four of the biggest casino companies are betting that it won't. Las Vegas Sands is pitching a $3.6 billion project that would include a partnership with the Guggenheim Foundation. The Malaysian company Genting has promised an association with Universal Studios.

Harrah's, which has teamed up with a government-owned company, has enlisted James Cameron, director of the movie "Titanic," to design an indoor theme park. And MGM Mirage, which has also teamed up with a state-owned company, is including Cirque du Soleil as part of its bid.

"It's more money than we have ever proposed for any other hotel-casino integrated resort," said J. Terrence Lanni, chief executive of MGM Mirage.

If Singapore is trying to loosen up, the casino industry is seeking to shed its somewhat unsavory reputation and win acceptance as mainstream entertainment. And after a series of industry mergers - Harrah's with Caesar's, MGM with Mandalay - the casino giants see Asia, with its turbocharged economic growth and fervor for gambling, as the next great frontier.

Analysts estimate that casino revenue in the region will grow 20 percent this year to $13 billion. And that does not include the estimated $4 billion or more that Asians spend each year on illegal gambling or cruise-ship casinos.

Perhaps no one takes gambling more seriously than the Chinese. In China, casinos are illegal, so package vacations often include a visit to gambling centers like Macao, the former Portuguese enclave near Hong Kong. Since ending a monopoly on gambling two years ago, the once-seedy Macao has attracted billions of dollars in investments. MGM is spending more than $1 billion to build a casino there. Sands is building its second casino after its first pulled in more than $900 million within three months of opening.

Other Asian governments are taking notice. "The success that Macao has seen is putting pressure on other Asian economies to look at gaming as a source of income," said Joseph Greff, a gambling industry analyst at Bear Stearns in New York. South Korea, the Philippines and Vietnam are expanding their casinos, and Japan, Taiwan and Thailand are considering legalizing them.

Singapore does not want to lose out. Tourism accounts for just 5 percent of Singapore's economy, and the authorities, despite a lack of natural tourist attractions here, hope to double annual arrivals to 17 million and triple the amount tourists spend to 30 billion Singapore dollars, or $19 billion, by 2015.

Officials here have rejected several casino proposals, most recently in 2002, when a committee assembled by Lee Hsien Loong, then finance minister, included a plan for one in an overall strategy aimed at helping Singapore improve its competitiveness at a time the global economy was still sluggish.

But signs have been mounting that Singapore is loosening up. In 2003, it lifted a ban on bar-top dancing and signaled an end to a crackdown on gay bars. The next year, it lifted a 20-year ban on Cosmopolitan magazine. Last year, a government minister presided at the opening of a Singapore branch of the Parisian topless revue Crazy Horse.

A few factual inaccuracies and omissions as I see it.

1. Crackdown on gay bars - ask the visitors to Happy how frequently they are raided.

2. Crazy horse cabaret. Click here for Yawningbread's article on exactly how "wild" the local branch is.

In March 2004, a government minister told Parliament the government was considering a casino on a small island theme park just off the main island of Singapore. The government then announced plans to place a second entertainment complex, designed as a showcase, directly across the harbor from the city center on land that city planners have designated for Singapore's new business district.

"This is the face of Singapore," said Cheng Hsing Yao, head of planning for the area at the Urban Redevelopment Authority. "We don't want kitsch."

To ensure that gambling does not dominate the scene, the casino will be allowed to occupy no more than 5.5 percent of the resort's area. The operator must build an equally large attraction of a different type - a museum, gallery or theater - as well.

This article was clearly written by a Singaporean, and I'm taking a wild guess, was commissioned by the Singapore government as part of their image-maintenance. I am half-amused by how the singapore government is all willing to bend over backwards for the tourists, and treat their own people like dirt. I am amused at how the casino is targeted at tourists, while singaporean citizens have to fork out extra money. It speak volumes about our own hypocrisy, which I pointed out in Integrated Queeresorts , a satire.

Singapore

What are MPs for?

Transport Minister Yeo Cheow Tong never expected to enter politics — and to stay in it for the past 22 years.

In an exit interview with reporters yesterday, Mr Yeo said: "When I was asked to stand for elections in 1984, the chairman of my company asked me how long I expected to stay in politics. I said maybe eight to 12 years."

So in 1996, after successfully organising the World Trade Organization ministerial conference as Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Yeo first raised the issue of his political retirement to former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. "Mr Goh told me there was no way I was going to leave," recalled Mr Yeo with a laugh.

The 59-year-old father of three daughters — whom he said have practically "grown up without him" — had broached his political retirement a few times since then.

"I've always desired to return to the private sector so I'm happy that now, Prime Minister Lee (Hsien Loong) has agreed to let me go, even though he asked me to still stand as an MP. Coming from the PM, it's hard to say no," said Mr Yeo, who is the MP for Hong Kah GRC.

As for how active a backbencher he will be, Mr Yeo said: "I'll cross that bridge when it comes ... where the issues are relevant I'll definitely speak up."

While it would be "unfair" to make transport issues his pet topic, he added that he would be happy to support his successor — Minister in the Prime Minister's Office Raymond Lim — when he has to explain any policies that were implemented since he took office as Transport Minister in 2001.

Noting that transport fares have risen by one cent a year for the past 20 years on average, Mr Yeo said that such a situation was unique to Singapore.

"Our fares are very reasonable," he said. "We have to be fair to commuters and the public transport service providers. If they can't make a reasonable profit, they won't invest in upgrading and our transport system will degrade."

He also defended the public listing of the public transport companies: SMRT Corp and ComfortDelGro Corp.

"Allowing operations by private companies forces them to be more efficient. That's why we've been able to enjoy bus fares that increase by one cent a year without any Government subsidy," he said.

One thing that Mr Yeo cites as a "definite" regret in his stewardship of the transport industry is the failure to clinch an Open Skies Agreement with Australia that would allow Singapore Airlines to fly the lucrative Sydney-Los Angeles route.
He said that "expectations" were high that Singapore would finally be granted the air rights and a bilateral commitment to a "road map" towards open skies in 2004.

"I was disappointed when the decision was made and told through the (Australian) press," said Mr Yeo, adding that he has yet to receive an official response from the Australian government.

Still, Mr Yeo will be visiting Australia in the next few months — this time for pleasure, not business. A mechanical engineering graduate from the University of Western Australia in Perth, Mr Yeo plans to visit his friends there, as well as China and Europe with his wife.

"I'll be taking a few months off to travel. I've been working virtually non-stop since 1972!" he quipped.Mr Yeo's career began in the Economic Development Board from 1972 to 1975. He then joined LeBlond Makino Asia as a staff engineer and was managing director by the time he left in 1984 to enter politics.

"I hope people will remember me as someone who tried his best to work for his country," he said. -- CNA

-----------------------------------------------------------------

It is indeed surprising that Mr Yeo Cheow Tong is being so flippant and irresponsible about his duties as an elected Member of Parliament. Although he is no longer a Minister, surely he is accountable to the residents of his constituency, those of whom he was elected to serve?

The PAP mentioned that the Opposition's idea of having full-time MPs is not necessarily a good thing, because their experiences in the private sector would lend them certain insights, and enable them to solve their constituents' problems more effectively. So, are we to take it that Mr Yeo's lengthy sojourn in Australia ("for pleasure", no less) will also similarly render him more insightful and more able to serve his constituents?

We certainly hope so!

Democracy, Ideology and Process Re-Engineering: Realising the Benefits of e-Government in Singapore

by Kieron O'Hara and David Stevens of the United Kingdom using data provided by the Singaporean Ministry of Finance. (Full PDF)

I attended the recent WWW2006 conference being held in Edinburgh. On spotting the title of the talk I knew it was one I couldn't afford to miss. The crowd attending was truely global in nature. However, although it was a serious talk the academics,researchers and civil servants attending did tend to laugh rather too much. Not at the speaker, he was great, but we laughed at the style of governance and the newspeak, 'illiberal democracy', 'opposition is very important, so important that the ruling party argues they should be doing it'. After a few minutes of joining in with the laughter I suddenly felt a huge attack of guilt. I enjoyed living in Singapore for a few years and the fact that others were laughing at Singapore made me feel rather defensive.

After a few days of thinking about the talk and the laughing I came to the conclusion that we were not laughing at Singapore or Singaporeans but the People's Action Party.

ABSTRACT
The re-engineering of governmental processes is a necessary condition for the realisation of the benefits of e-government. Several obstacles to such re engineering exist. These include: (1) information processing thrives on transparency and amalgamation of data, whilst governments are constrained by principles of privacy and data separation; (2) top-down re-engineering may be resisted effectively from the bottom up. This paper analyses these obstacles in the way of re-engineering in Singapore – a democratic one-party state where legislative and executive power lies with the People’s Action Party – and considers how that hegemony has aided the development of e-government.

Keywords
E-government, democracy, ideology, pragmatism, Singapore, process re-engineering, interoperability, privacy, management.

1. INTRODUCTION
In the complex world of the 21st century, government is reliant upon accurate and timely information about its legislative and policy contexts. Whether that information is gathered by governments, or provided by citizens and businesses, the quality of management of that information is vital [14]. The idea of e-government is to manage information and deliver services using information technology (IT) where possible. Using IT should create a number of benefits for government, including the standardisation of processes, efficiency of information transfer and storage and effective search, not to mention the decrease in the costs of information management. There should also be visible benefits for the citizen, including the simplification of the interface with government, the ability to manage one’s own case, and the lower taxes that should result from the reduction of the government’s costs. These benefits are naturally balanced by the costs of creating giant computer systems, and of the reengineering required.

The issues underlying re-engineering shouldn’t be underestimated. It is very hard to turn staff-intensive and paperbased systems into automatic digital systems, especially when the re-engineering might well be entrusted to the very staff whose jobs are under threat from the transformation, and whose incentives are at best mixed. It is also very hard to integrate systems across platforms to provide seamless service for the citizen. Furthermore, the chief driver of change is not pressure from without, but rather consciousness within government of the opportunity costs of not upgrading systems – a notoriously weak driver.

As a result 21st century e-government systems are often grafted onto 19th century bureaucracies. This locks in the high costs of integration, and tends to create islands of e-government rather than allowing an integrated approach across government. Furthermore, in some polities, lack of trust in government, however well-founded, can lead to scepticism regarding the benefits of efficiency. Privacy issues loom large. Where a government possesses large quantities of information, the guarantor of privacy is often what we might term practical obscurity: the phenomenon that information, often paper-based and held in discrete repositories, though theoretically in the hands of governments is actually not useful because it cannot be found effectively in a timely way [14]. This is particularly true of information which does not exist explicitly in government archives, but rather could be deduced from information held in two or more other sources.

Recent work on e-government has shown that interoperability and re-engineering problems can interfere seriously with the effectiveness of putting government services online. In particular, studies have highlighted the need for standards to support interoperability, security and privacy requirements that stem from the amalgamation of databases and services, and process reengineering to optimise the benefits of shifting governmental services online [1], [21], [22].

Because businesses have to perform such re-engineering of legacy systems, and because they face similar difficulties, it is tempting to treat government as a large business in the analysis of the problem. However, government has many drivers and difficulties of context that businesses do not face: in particular, whereas businesses have the (relatively) straightforward goal of creating value for shareholders within the law, governments need to meet a wide range of targets.

Furthermore, different governments need (or want) to meet different targets. This paper examines one key driver in a government’s approach to the process of governing: ideology. Differing underlying ideologies create very different contexts for e-government systems. The form, and likelihood of success, of an e-government programme can depend quite dramatically on what ideological assumptions underpin particular polities. We will examine the experiences of e-government in an unusual democracy, Singapore. Section 2 discusses the context for and experience of egovernment in Singapore, while Section 3 looks at ideologies and party structures in Singapore to consider what effect these may have. Section 4 concludes.

To continue reading a well balanced academic article click here.(PDF)

Singapore

Bad Democracy - Lee Hsien Loong

A gentle reminder to vote if you haven't already done so. Guess who is in the lead and sure to claim the title for May 2006.

Singapore's leadership may be the most pigheaded example of the notion that democracy is little more than a financial inefficiency. Ahead of elections this month, the prime minister continues to rely on the mantra that you can't make an economic omelette without silencing a few eggs. Thus it is that opposition parties are bullied, their leaders persecuted and their supporters intimidated. True, a smattering of democratic pretence has been added to the proceedings, but Lee, like his father before him, has manifestly failed to loosen the political reins. Aiming for a clean sweep in the poll, Lee has even sunk to suing opponents who dared to compare his manner of government to the running of Singapore's opaque National Kidney Foundation.

Singapore

'PAP Dictatorship Beware'

I received this via email, it contained no header or link to the original posting. So if you find the URL please post it in the comment section.

www.malaysiakini.com

Manjit Bhatia
May 23, 06 4:24pm - Singapore Sling

So Lee Hsien Loong, son of Lee Kuan Yew, the so-called founding father of Singapore, won the May 6 election in his own right. What's more, he won it hands down. Well, la-di-da. Who would have guessed the polls being so tight that even the finest punters would have struggled to call the winner? Voters took time out to race tadpoles in Singapore's back streets. Or, as Google Trends reports, Singaporeans, being one the world's loneliest people, were too busy surfing the Internet in search of happiness, or its meaning. Either way, the bookies were left twiddling their thumbs over the election result. And just as well. Blind Freddy, now also with half a brain, would've known with dead certainty who would win that poll.

As elections go in Singapore, this last one was another no brainer. Junior Lee, who took over from prime minister Goh Chok Tong in 2004, is a dead ringer of his father's policies, and of his father's politics. Nothing much has changed since the elder Lee stepped down in 1990. Upon retiring , Papa Lee remodelled himself as senior minister in the prime minister's office. When Goh, only the second premier, retired in 2004, Papa Lee promoted himself to minister mentor (whatever that means) while Goh inherited Lee's senior minister title. Sounds like a club for geriatric, paternalistic Singaporean authoritarians. Both men are privy to cabinet meetings and discussions.

The one legacy of his old man's that Lee junior has stuck to is the politics of fear. It has long been instilled in Singaporeans, including the opposition political parties who would dare challenge the establishment. The other is gerrymandering electoral politics that only the People s Action Party (PAP) - an awful irony which has ruled the city-state as one-party dictatorship since 1965 - can do. Never mind that opposition parties and a parliamentary system exist. If son Lee, like his papa, had it all his own way, he'd make dissidents walk off a half-finished, half-cocked, crooked causeway bridge, tersely abandoned, across the Johor Straits to Malaysia, hoping that white pointer sharks preyed there.

Junior may have won the polls but the PAP's overall mandate has been slit. It won only 66.6% of Singaporean hearts and minds, compared to 75.3% in 2001. That's in spite of strong economic growth, Junior doling out seductive election-eve budget sweeteners, and a raft of controls on opposition parties. The PAP government won all but two of the 84 seats in parliament, the same result it achieved in 2001. And, much to Junior's chagrin no doubt, two opposition MPs, Chiam See Tong of the Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) and Low Thia Khiang of the Workers Party (WP), were returned. Moreover, Chiam and Low secured increased majorities despite the PAP's strenuous efforts to depose them.

Deal of the century

To this junior Lee declared that the PAP will review its strategy for approaching these two constituencies over the next five years. If that means the PAP may be willing to accept genuine political pluralism in Singapore, don't hold your breath. It just won't happen. Still, having its mandate slashed, the PAP is nevertheless rejoicing one other result: the obliteration, virtually, of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) at the polls.

Lee junior wanted nothing less than a crushing win for the PAP and to not only rule Singapore in his own right but also his right to rule the tiny republic. And he couldn't have made this any clearer, with a monumental blunder during a campaign speech. 'Instead of spending my time thinking of what is the right policy for Singapore, I have to spend all my time thinking what is the right way to fix them, what's the right way to buy my own supporters over,' Lee said.

It came at a time when more and more graduates from abroad are returning home only to side with opposition parties. Wiping the SDP off the political landscape is a consolation of sorts. Ironically, older voters, especially low-income workers, have become more disgruntled because of job cuts, higher consumer taxes and rising transport and utilities costs. And younger voters simply don't like the PAP's authoritarianism.

More, many see Junior's rise as the making of a Lee political dynasty. The first family controls the island republic's politics, and Junior's siblings, including in-laws, head up Singapore's biggest government-linked companies (GLCs). Junior Lee's younger brother heads SingTel, the state-owned telecommunications monolith, and his wife Ho Ching heads Temasek Holdings, the secretive state investment company.

Temasek bought up majority shares in Shin Corp, the flagship and giant telco founded by billionaire Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who stood down from his position in April. It was the deal of the century, with no transparency whatsoever. And the city-state never once baulked from the immorality of that deal. It's no different from the Singapore government bankrolling the murderous regime in Burma through GLC-linked investments.

The lack of transparency in the PAP government has obvious reasons. One of these is that it allows the PAP government to obviate scrutiny and questioning of its policies and operations in almost every facet of political, social and economic life in the city-state. It has a vice-grip on Singapore's media, making these the PAP's channels for propaganda and spin. It's part of Papa Lee s ongoing attempts at social engineering and control by mass producing Singaporean clones who would never question or challenge the government. It puts the PAP state's institutions above the law and gives them extra-juridical powers. It's entirely self-serving because the PAP incumbents would never feel intimidation from voters or by its foreign critics.

Thanks, but no thanks

Witness this from Papa Lee, when he said that some day, if the opposition parties have proved themselves, a more active opposition would be acceptable. And he also added: 'I want a world -class opposition, not this riff-raff'. Yeah, right. In one exchange with foreign journalists in Singapore recently, Lee senior said: 'You are not going to intimidate me, ever. We re not going to allow foreign correspondents or foreign journalists or anybody else to tell us what to do. There are very few things that I do not know about Singapore politics, and there are very few things that you can tell me or any foreign correspondent can tell me about Singapore'.

That's sheer humbug. The Lee family thinks Singapore is the model country for not only the developing world but also the developed world. Thanks, but no thanks. Papa Lee has always sounded like a schoolyard bully. His recalcitrance is among his many trademarks as king-maker. His and the PAP's most common and favourite tactic is to intimidate and silence their critics by suing them for libel. It works well with domestic critics, who are thrust onto the back foot. It forces them to adopt self-censorship or else face the humiliation of bankruptcy and loss of basic political rights.

Not that the latter matters. Singaporeans have never won their fundamental freedoms since gaining independence from Malaysia 41 years ago. They still have hang-ups about that. And there may be no end to Singaporeans' basic political rights being secured any time soon. If it is any consolation, the situation is the same with their neighbours in the region too. Still, for all its smugness, the PAP dictatorship must beware. Its manically self-serving politics can and will only sow the seeds of its own self-destruction sooner or later. Hopefully it is soon.

------------------------------------------------
MANJIT BHATIA, an academician and writer, is also research director of AsiaRisk, a political, economic and risk analysis consultancy in Australia. He specialises in international economics and politics, with a focus on the Asia-Pacific.

Singapore

NUSS Forum: Reasons for 12% of non-voters, spoilt votes should be analysed

SINGAPORE : There has been a change in voter attitudes at the 2006 General Election.

Not only did they pay more attention to the issues raised by the various political parties during the hustings, they also gave their vote to the ones most established and organised.

The political dialogue organised by the National University of Singapore Society brought together political commentators and candidates who had contested the election.

They shared their views on issues ranging from whether the 66.6 percent of votes garnered by the People's Action Party (PAP) was indeed a strong mandate and if there was a level playing field for political parties during the hustings.

For the PAP, an area of concern was the negative political views expressed in internet forums during the hustings.

Said Denise Phua, MP for Jalan Besar GRC: "PAP bashing became commonplace on cyberspace when more than 80 to 85 percent on what's on internet traffic becomes so negative to the ruling party of our country, I know something has gone wrong. And that to me is no longer a balanced perspective. Foreigners who chance upon these websites can probably see only one side of the story.

"The PAP is not perfect and I will be the first to admit it. But the easiest thing to do is to poke holes on what could have gone wrong and not to say anything that it has done right."

Defeated Workers' Party candidate Perry Tong noted that the 38 percent of votes for the opposition demonstrated the desire for an opposition in Singapore.

But the party is worried about the nearly 2 percent of spoilt votes and another 10 percent of voters who didn't cast their vote this election.

He is hoping the causes of this trend would be closely analysed.

Mr Tong also says he is satisfied that every vote is secret, a point maintained by Workers' Party Chief Low Thia Khiang.

"Who is not going to know if the High Court vault gets reopened and your votes get recounted. So in a sense yes, your vote is secret and I echo Mr Wong Kan Seng, although he is my opponent," said Workers' Party member Perry Tong.

As for the next General Election due in 2011, Ms Phua says voters would be watching if PAP Members of Parliament can play a check and balance role more effectively than an opposition party.

She also believes there will be a race for talent as each political party works to attract the best amongst Singaporeans to join its fold to stand for elections.

----

Since the PAP won, it is only valid that the media publishes "voters gave their vote to the ones most established and organised..."

Link

Singapore

Singapore opposition figure seeks to void election

Tue May 23, 2006 3:55 PM IST
By Fayen Wong

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A candidate from the opposition Singapore Democratic Party has appealed to the court to annul the results of the May 6 parliament election, which it says was undemocratic.

Chee Siok Chin, sister of SDP leader Chee Soon Juan, submitted an application to the High Court on Tuesday, asking that "the results of the General Elections, 2006, be declared null and void" on the basis that it was not free and fair.

"During the time of polling, there were many threats and vote-buying tactics that are clearly unconstitutional. All these have been going on since 1997 and it is about time someone checks on how this government uses taxpayers' money for its own electioneering purpose," Chee told Reuters.

In court documents seen by Reuters, Chee accused the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) of intimidating opposition voters by warning them that wards which elect an opposition candidate will be last in line for state-subsidised improvements, after all PAP-held wards are attended to.

The government has repeatedly said that upgrading housing estates is a PAP-initiated program, so those who support the PAP would be accorded higher priority, given budget constraints.

Opposition politicians have criticised the upgrading programme as an unfair tactic and say that development projects, such as housing upgrades, are paid for with public funds and should be for all citizens rather than doled out as privileges to party supporters.

DOLING OUT MONEY

Chee's application also accused the PAP of doling out money ahead of the past two elections.

In February, Lee launched a S$2.6 billion ($1.65 billion) budget spending package, including S$800 in cash for almost half the nation's households and a bonus for army conscripts. The handouts were deposited in Singaporeans' bank accounts on May 1, five days before the election was held.

The government has repeatedly denied the budget package was a vote-winning ploy, and has said the payout was meant to prepare Singapore citizens for the long-term challenges of globalisation.

Chee also asked the court to declare the recent ban on political podcasts and videocasts during the election period as unconstitutional, because the law violated individuals' rights to free speech as guaranteed under the constitution.

"I believe that such acts are tantamount to intimidation, bribery and censorship, which contravenes the Parliamentary Elections Act," Chee said in the court application.

The PAP -- led by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, son of the modern city-state's founding father Lee Kuan Yew -- won 66.6 percent of the votes cast in the recent poll, down from 75.3 percent in the previous election in 2001.

The party, which has dominated parliament since independence in 1965, won 82 out of the 84 seats in parliament, the same number of seats it had in the outgoing parliament.

The SDP has no seats in parliament and won 23 percent of the vote in the wards it contested.

A 41-year old civil activist, Chee and her brother are facing a defamation lawsuit launched by Lee and his father over what the Lees say are accusations of corruption in an article in the SDP's newsletter.

Singapore

PAP must address 'negative Internet'

SHE was a new face representing the People's Action Party, but when Ms Denise Phua surfed the Internet during the recent General Election, the tone of the postings stunned her.

They were overwhelmingly slanted against the ruling party.

Gasp!

"I know that something has gone wrong when more than 85 per cent (of the traffic) writes negatively about the PAP," she said at a post-mortem of the GE organised last night by the National University of Singapore Society.

Hallelujah! Someone finally realises something is wrong!

"This is something that the PAP would do well to take into account ... and to manage this channel of communication," she added.

Oh wait... what is wrong isn't the PAP's policies, but us. And the solution to this isn't changing their policies and mindset, but "managing us"

Ms Phua stressed that she was not dismissing the views posted on the Internet nor even disagreeing with them. Her concern was more that the coverage was not balanced.

1. The bloggosphere has absolutely no obligation to be balanced, because we are not some amorphous body, but made up of individual bloggers voicing their opinion. And if that opinion happens to be skewed... don't blame us, but yourself.

2. What about our austere media? How balanced were they?

Nowhere, for example, was it mentioned that this particular GE was not a snap poll or that the Opposition had the freedom to hold rallies of its own. But given the fact that cyber-traffic goes out to the world, Ms Phua felt that a foreigner reading about elections in Singapore would only have a chance to hear one side of the story — that too, a somewhat skewed one.

Er.... it was definitely mentioned that opposition parties are free to hold their rallies... because the bloggosphere is flooded with videos and photos of the rallies. It was the mainstream media which consistently failed to provide coverage of the opposition.

Again, she mentioned that her party would do well to think about this medium.

Is that a way of warning us to shut up?

One member of the audience pointed out that if the Internet was skewed in one direction then, surely, the local media had gone in the other direction, giving far more coverage to the ruling party

Finally, a voice of reason!

Perhaps, rebutted Ms Phua, this was on account of the fact that the PAP had fielded far more candidates in the GE than the Opposition — and the coverage was a reflection of that.

Rule number one of singapore media: For every reasonable statement, a stupid statement always has to follow, preferably from a politican. Oh please.... the opposition fielded candidates in more than half of the constituencies! You are telling me that one tiny paragraph for them, compared to pages and pages devoted to the life histories of PAP candidates, is fair coverage?

Dr Chee Soon Juan, secretary-general of the Singapore Democratic Party, objected not merely to the extent of coverage that his party had received in the media, but also to the tone of it. He said that even the photographs of his party's candidates used in local newspapers were "not flattering". Someone from the audience mentioned that Dr Chee sounded more "reasonable" than the image he had formed of him. "That is because what you read about me is a relentless campaign of character assassination," said Dr Chee.

To be fair, I am surprised this comment made it to print... I have to give the Today reporter/editor credit for this.

A member of the audience observed that the local media, during the recent GE, had been more balanced than in the past.

Oh yeah... nowadays, they don't report statements calling candidates racists. They call them liars. And they publish photos of rallies five days after everyone else has seen them on the bloggosphere.

Another issue that cropped up related to voting secrecy. Mr Perry Tong from the Workers' Party acknowledged that he had no doubt whatsoever that the vote was secret and it was "as good as impossible" for someone to find out how an individual had voted.
Political scientist Dr Ho Khai Leong then said he was surprised that the Opposition had not used this fact to their advantage to persuade more people to vote for them.
But Dr Chee said the fears did exist.
"And even if people's fears are irrational, you still have to address them," he added. — Derrick A Paulo

Although I have practically demolished the article, I have this to say about Today. This is about as balanced an article you are going to get from SPH, and all they have done is report utter rubbish from Denise Phua, not endorse it. They have added quite contrasting statements from CSJ, and I'll give them points for that.

In conclusion: don't flame the article. Flame the statements made in it by our dear Denise Phua, which is what I've done, mostly.

Link
Mr Wang's comments on this article

Singapor

Amnesty International Report 2006

This Amnesty International Report documents human rights abuses in 150 countries around the world. It highlights the need for governments, the international community, armed groups and others in positions of power or influence to take responsibility. It also reflects the vitality of human rights activists globally, whether in local initiatives, international summits or mass demonstrations.

And this is what it has to say about Singapore:

Freedom of expression and assembly continued to be curbed. Thirty-six men were held without charge or trial under the Internal Security Act (ISA). Death sentences were imposed and eight people were executed. Jehovah’s Witnesses continued to be imprisoned for conscientious objection to military service. Criminal offenders were sentenced to caning.

The threat of potentially ruinous civil defamation suits against opponents of the PAP continued to inhibit political life.

The threat of prosecution, and uncertainty over the boundaries of permissible public debate, contributed to a climate of self-censorship.

Restrictions on freedom of assembly also inhibited peaceful civil society activity.

Click here to the full report on Singapore or here for the main index of the report.

Singapore

JBJ: My Dad, My Hero

22 May 2006, Straits Times

His father is veteran opposition politician JBJ, but lawyer and writer
Philip Jeyaretnam has no plans to enter politics

HE MAY be known best as the offspring of a veteran opposition
politician, but lawyer and Senior Counsel Philip Jeyaretnam does not
want to see his life reduced to the tagline 'JBJ's son'. JBJ is how
many Singaporeans refer to his father, Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam.

'It can be annoying,' says the younger Jeyaretnam, 42, of the tagline.
He's meeting Life! at his office at law firm Rodyk & Davidson in UOB
Plaza.

It had been more than annoying when he tried to get work here in the
late 1980s, after graduating with first-class honours in law from
Cambridge University in 1986.

The mild-mannered man says, without any bitterness: 'There was no
doubt in my mind that people were not giving me the job because of who
my father was.'

Two firms, which he declines to name, turned him down, with a senior
partner at one of them divulging apologetically the firm's concerns
over who his father was. Eventually, Singapore law firm Robert Wang &
Woo took him on as a pupil in 1988.

That aside, he makes it clear that he is glad to be his father's son.
He remembers excitedly following his father on campaign walks as a
12-year-old.

His Dad, who is now 80, is still struggling with his resulting
bankruptcy and disbarment in the aftermath of losing defamation suits
brought against him by members of the Government.

Asked if he sees his father as a hero, the younger Jeyaretnam replies
emphatically: 'Yes, of course.'

He is more careful with Life!'s other questions, pausing for long
minutes before he answers. At one point, you ask him something as
simple as what he has been reading lately and he mutters to himself,
brows furrowed in earnest concentration: 'I'm just trying to work it
through, think it through.'

He laughs often throughout this interview, a nasal chuckle reminiscent
of the character Peter Griffin from the cult animated cartoon Family Guy.

But, aside from the spectacles and chubby cheeks, the resemblance ends
there.

The younger Jeyaretnam is driven by a need to understand, whether it
is by piecing together the arguments for a case or by penetrating the
inner life of a character in one of his many short stories.

A commercial litigator who specialises in the time-guzzling area of
construction law, he handles such clients as Japanese-owned Nishimatsu
Construction Company, which was involved in the 2004 collapse of
Nicoll Highway.

Still, the former Fulbright fellow sees to his work so deftly, he
makes it home for dinner with his family every night.

He and his wife, former stage actress Cindy Sim, also 42, have three
children: Tristan, 11, Quentin, nine, and Miranda, six.

'The core of anything else is always the family,' says the man who
finds time to tuck his two boys into bed every night, often with a
poem, and spends an hour with his daughter in the Botanic Gardens
before making it to work by 8.10am daily.

Protected From Politics

HIS own childhood was not so picture-perfect, although it began
happily enough.

The younger of two sons, his father is of Ceylon Tamil descent and his
mother, the late Margaret Cynthia Walker, was British.

His parents, both devout Anglicans, fell in love when they were
reading law at University College London, and ended up as partners
together in Singapore of their own firm, J B Jeyaretnam & Company.

As his father was called to the bar later than his mother, his father
would often refer to his wife as his 'senior partner'.

His elder brother Kenneth, 47, also a Cambridge alumnus, lives in
London and works in finance.

Growing up, the younger Jeyaretnam was closer to his mother, as she
worked only half-days and, as the elder Jeyaretnam tells Life!, would
protect his sons from the 'whirlpool of politics'. Recalling holidays
in Britain with his mother, the younger Jeyaretnam says: 'My father
was supposed to join us but never quite made it. An election was
called, or there'd be a pile-up of cases, or whatever.'

So it was a cruel blow to them when, in 1980, his mother died after a
three-year-long fight with breast cancer.

Recalling when he learnt of her illness, he turns sober, his lawyer's
memory for dates suddenly seeming a liability: 'It was April 10, 1978,
and I had just turned 16.'

Not long after that, his father won the 1981 Anson by-election and
became an opposition MP.

The elder Jeyaretnam later found himself fighting a series of
defamation suits and, as his son puts it, 'there wasn't anyone to
protect us' now that his mother was gone.

The legal action against his father took its toll on his family.

'It was kind of touch-and-go... If I had been two or three years
younger, my father wouldn't have been able to send me to university at
all.'

But when asked if he thinks his father sacrificed family for the sake
of politics, he pauses for a long while and says finally: 'No, I think
my father's always done what he could to protect his family.'

Having chalked up 18 years in the law - and the coveted title of
Senior Counsel - himself, the younger Jeyaretnam now leads his legal
brethren here.

He has been president of the Law Society here since 2004 and is an
adjunct professor at the Department of Building in the National
University of Singapore.

He says he is concerned about the future of young lawyers - whether he
is pushing for better life-work balance for them or simply teaching
them the finer points of advocacy and arbitration. Somehow, he has
found time to serve on the boards of the National Arts Council, the
Singapore Tourism Board and the new National Kidney Foundation Board.

Such a CV is the stuff of future politicians, but he says he is not
switching careers anytime soon.

He says: 'I've thought about it over the years. So far the answer has
always been no.'

Then, bursting into laughter, he adds: 'I'm a very gentle soul;
sensitive. I don't have the stomach for it.'

He then muses: 'My father was more than just materially secure; he was
very well-off, certainly one of the top criminal lawyers in Singapore.
And where is he now?'

He says he respects his father for having 'sacrificed everything for
what he believes in' but adds that he does not think anyone would want
'to repeat that kind of career trajectory'.

As he puts it: 'He's deeply loved by many people, but maybe love isn't
enough... You can't live on admiration and respect.'

That said, he says he is close to his father today and sees him at
least once a week. His father lives alone, splitting his time between
Singapore and Johor Baru. They discuss law, politics or simply talk as
fathers and sons do.

While son has never represented father in court, the elder Jeyaretnam
tells Life! that his lawyer son has given him legal advice - and
financial assistance. 'They've been good sons,' he says of both his
children.

No More The Scribe

BESIDES politics, writing is another path that the younger Jeyaretnam
has veered from, despite treading it for some years. His first
published short story Campfire, which he wrote during his National
Service stint, won him second prize in the 1983 National Short Story
writing competition.

He went on to publish short stories, a novella and two novels, winning
the Young Artist Of The Year award in 1993 and the South-East Asia
Write Award in 2003.

To be fair, bearing the name Jeyaretnam has also helped him. As he
puts it: 'If people remember your name, the chance of them buying your
book... is that much greater.'

Indeed, he had become such an icon of home-grown literature that his
last novel, Abraham's Promise (1995), had recently been part of the
O-levels syllabus.

But he hardly writes now, citing the increasing demands of his family
and legal work.

Writing is, as he puts it, 'a luxury which I can't afford at the
moment'. He doubts his novel- in-progress, which he has not touched in
years, will ever 'see the light of day', even as he says that his
possibly decades-long time-out from writing is just a 'holiday'.

That is ironic coming from a man who bemoans: 'It's one of the real
problems of Singapore now... the way work eats up people's time to the
extent that they have no time for anything else'. Too often, he says,
Singaporean writers come out with an interesting book when they are in
their 20s - and then simply disappear after that.

He thinks he is following the same route, but remains a 'great
believer in the value of writing'.

Like his father, he has his own vision for Singapore, saying that his
involvement in the arts, tourism and the law are all connected.

He says he'd like to see 'more untidiness and openness' in the
Singapore of the future.

His plan of action to that end, however, differs from his father's.

'You have to find the centre, the point where you can bring together
agreement from enough people in order to make that change happen.'

So, while he thinks voices from the margins are crucial, he believes a
middle ground needs to be forged between what he sees as the otherwise
'fossilised' roles of establishment and anti-establishment.

As he puts it: 'The outsider role can become rather comfortable; it is
one without responsibility, perhaps.'


Philip Jeyaretnam on...

Why he chose to study history and literature instead of law: 'If one
has no social responsibilities and has no need to compromise, then
obviously the pursuit of knowledge is the most exciting and enjoyable
thing for a human being'

What he sees as the work-efficiency- materialism trap in Singapore
today: 'They lead ultimately very miserable lives which they enliven
by spending money. They don't have time, they have only money, so they
buy themselves a nice car or whatever, but in the end they don't have
the time to enjoy these things - or life'

His belief that there is a lack of political discourse among
overworked Singaporeans: 'Singapore is not comfortable politically;
Singapore is not comfortable economically. Anyone who is complacent in
Singapore is putting a paper bag over his head'.

Singapore’s Lee Offers Korea Advice

South Korea learns a thing or two on the art of neo-facism:

MAY 20, 2006 02:59
by Mi-Kyung Jung (mickey@donga.com)

Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor of Singapore (former prime minister), stressed, “Korea’s further development into a first-class country in the world hinges on turning the “energy of conflict” into the “energy of harmony.”

At the 20th Inchon Memorial Lecture co-hosted by Dong-A Ilbo and Korea University on May 19, Lee advised that Korea should concentrate its energy on drawing up an agreement between social forces with different opinions and ideas, saying, “Korea is considered the ‘nation of conflict’ by foreigners despite its rapid economic development.” He added, “Korea will be able to develop further if it turns its intense energy deriving from conflicts between employer and employee, and between political parties toward its advance in the global market.”

Visiting Korea again in four years after his first visit in 2002, Lee received an honorary doctoral degree in Politics from Korea University and gave a special lecture on “the key to securing global talent and how to develop into a global university.”

In his lecture, he presented the three conditions of a successful country: leadership, stable political power, and consistent policies.

Lee, who is listed as one of the world-leading political leaders in the twentieth century, also said, “A true leader is one who can devise long-term strategies for the development of education and the economy.”

In the lecture, he warned that Korea’s competitive power against China in the area of high-technology might disappear rapidly with the advent of the “Century of China” thirty or forty years from now.

“To cultivate a global perspective and strengthen Korea’s national competitive power, multilingual ability is the most required. Most of all, master English and Chinese,” advised Lee.

Lee added that an economic alliance would be the general trend despite a continuance of the political conflict among Korea, China, and Japan over historical issues. “Through an ‘East Asian community’ embracing these three countries and the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN), we can have our voice heard in our economic negotiations with the United States and EU,” stressed Lee.

- via Singapore Election Watch

Singapore

TNP Strikes Again

I will not traumatise the readers of this blog by copy-pasting the entire article from TNP. To summarise, the articles is yet another report on how gay men spread AIDS through clubs and saunas.

Another door next to the counter leads into the main premises. Through an opening on the door, we saw a few walking around topless with towels wrapped around their waists.

And notice, that TNP bolded the sensational statements - as if the fact that men walked around topless in towels was some unforgivable crime. Heard of locker rooms, anyone?

These illicit clubs advertise their services on the Internet. They also rely on members to bring in new patrons. Whenever a new club opens or an old one closes down, word gets around quickly, one member said...... One operator even proclaimed: 'We are an exclusive club! We don't need any publicity!'

Number one, these clubs are not illicit - they are registered businesses. And what exactly is incriminating about clubs not wanting to advertise?

But there are other health clubs and spas who do legitimate business. And these operators feel the shady joints give the industry a bad name.

The TNP seems to be implying that these gay clubs are the only ones with shady reputations. What about the hundreds of "massage parlours" which serve heterosexual male customers? Aren't these a bigger health risk than one or two gay saunas, at least by sheer numbers and ability to blend in with the legitimate businesses?

Andy said: 'It's always possible that one infected guy goes on to infect others in the club because he is angry and he wants to drag others in.'

It is possible, but not probable. Very few of these people exist - it is mostly an urban myth, of the needle inside the pay-phone, of the girls who hitchhike on motorbikes and give their riders a parting gift.

'If the Government can ban Nation and other gay parties because it thinks that they promote gay sex, how can it turn a blind eye to these men's clubs? The parties are held only once a year, but these clubs are open every day.'

Gay sex =/= promiscuous sex. Gay sex =/= AIDS

If the government can ban Nation and other gay parties because they think it spreads AIDS, why aren't they doing anything about the hundreds of Singaporeans who have paid sex with own girls, right here, around Orchard Towers and Geylang. Why isn't there anything done about Singaporeans travelling overseas and having paid sex with the girls there, in Batam, and other places?

I agree that HIV/AIDS is a real problem, and the gay population, as well as the straight population needs to be educated about the dangers of unprotected sex. But it does not help that papers like TNP run these articles to exploit the shock value, sensationalise the issue, and in the end, we are forced to take two steps back from where we are. Stop pointing fingers - it does not help anyone. Instead, start looking for ways to reach out to people and educate them, gay or straight, without bias. People at the MOH, stop being so darn homophobic and censor gay-affirming outreach programmes.

Until this can be done, they have no right to point fingers at gay men.

Singapore

DEMOCRACY IN SINGAPORE PART II

It doesn't take much to be a rebel in Singapore.

Throw a cigarette out the window, spit on the street.

Or more seriously, be a film student and make a documentary about an opposition leader, or write openly on the internet about being gay.

But increasingly, young Singaporeans are taking more risks and demanding a politically open society, where they're free to express themselves.

And, as Rebecca Henschke reports they're using the freedom of the internet and of music to create a quiet revolution.

Singapore

Nanny state Singapore shows some ankle

SINGAPORE When Lee Chin Koon was a member in the 1930s, the Chinese Swimming Club here offered more than just laps in the pool. There was mah- jongg and blackjack, too.

"We Chinese are gamblers," he told club historians before his death in 1997. "If two lizards scale up a wall, someone would bet on them!"

Lee's son, Kuan Yew, later recalled how after a losing night, his father would come home in a violent rage demanding his wife give him jewelry to pawn. So when Lee Kuan Yew became the first prime minister of independent Singapore in 1959, he hammered on the vice, transforming this once-squalid seaport into a tidy industrial park.

Cigarettes and alcohol are heavily taxed. Drugs traffickers are hanged. Casinos, naturally, were banned.

But Lee Kuan Yew's son, Lee Hsien Loong, is now prime minister. He is striving to shake Singapore's reputation as Asia's nanny state for one that is more tolerant and fun-loving. And one of his signature projects harks back more to his grandfather's Chinese Swimming Club than his father's profit-perfect industrial landscape: the world's most expensive casino complex.

Last year, the government lifted its ban against casinos. Next month it is due to choose from a list that includes some of the biggest names in Las Vegas - Harrah's, Las Vegas Sands and MGM Mirage - to build the first of two planned gambling resorts, a $3 billion extravaganza that will include a casino, entertainment, convention center and hotels.

"What we're really after is to create a compelling, critical mass of attractions and services," said Vivian Balakrishnan, a former eye surgeon who as minister for community development, youth and sports oversees the effort to enliven Singapore.

Singapore's bet is that in return for letting casino operators in, it can lure a world-class tourist attraction that will not only anchor an ambitious new property development but help give Singapore what Prime Minister Lee refers to as the "X-factor" that makes London, Paris and New York such urban magnets.

In many ways, the casino project is a test of Singapore's ability to transform itself once again. It is also a chance for the casino executives to prove their mettle in a new dimension. The question among many casino executives and analysts, however, is whether Singapore has attached so many strings that the projects won't be profitable.

Read more.....

Singapore

New NKF seeks over S$12m in damages from Durai, four others

I guess this means Durai will be down-grading his golden taps to iron. And alas a couple more patients with kidney failure will live at the expense of one man's luxurious handwash. As for this new/old NKF identity, I still patiently await to hear more of what steps they have taken to improve transparency. TT Durai will not go down only as a scapegoat.

SINGAPORE : The new National Kidney Foundation (NKF) management is seeking more than S$12 million in damages in a civil suit against its former chief, three former directors, and a business associate.

Lawyers explain that several unquantifiable claims, upon assessment before the courts, could tip the scales beyond S$12 million.

All the claims were detailed in an 85-page statement to the High Court on April 24, and NKF lawyers Allen & Gledhill say unquantifiable ones make up a substantial portion of it.

The new NKF claims it suffered losses not only through improper payments, but also in its credibility, resulting in a drop in donations and support from volunteers and agencies.

The charity alleges that the loss of its reputation and goodwill in the eyes of the public has resulted in a drop in donations from existing donors as well as those who had cancelled regular donations.

Projects such as the charity shows were also affected and there has been a drop in the number of volunteers and support from medical, government agencies, and corporations, both within Singapore and abroad.

It was therefore seeking compensation for breach of duty from the five defendants, TT Durai [pictured above], Richard Yong, Matilda Chua, Loo Say San, and Pharis Aboobacker.

Said defence lawyer K Shanmugam, "Part of it is quantified; part of it is unquantified. Some parts of it, NKF has put a dollar claim -- what is the claim amount -- and some part of it is a matter for the court to make an assessment after hearing evidence as to how much is the damages."

The quantifiable claims alone amount to:
- S$2.1 million in salaries, bonuses and other benefits "improperly" paid to Durai;
- S$4.08 million for loss of donations in the form of Lifedrops income;
- Over S$556,000 in legal costs incurred when Durai and the old NKF brought a defamation suit against Singapore Press Holdings;
- And S$5.28 million paid to three companies linked to Pharis Aboobacker.

Mr Pharis, a friend of Durai, is in India, where relevant authorities are in the process of serving him the writ of summons.

He is the last of the five defendants to be told he is being sued by the new NKF.

Durai has been given additional two weeks, till May 31, to file his defence.

Richard Yong and Loo Say San filed their defence last Friday, while Matilda Chua is expected to do it at the start of the week.

Failure to file by the stipulated time would allow lawyers for the new NKF to apply for judgment against the relevant defendants.

Channel NewsAsia understands the trial is expected to begin in six to nine months.

Meantime, the criminal cases against Durai, Yong, Chua, Loo, and former NKF staff Ragini Vijayalingam will be mentioned again on June 19 at the Subordinate Courts.

At the pre-trial conference on Monday, the defence asked the prosecution for more documents pertaining to the charges.

- Channelnewsasia

Singapore

From Siam to Singapore Again

"And the relevance of the developments in Thailand to Singapore, however remote, is something to reflect on. I ask again, can Singapore's head of state, the president, play an effective check and balance role in any political crisis in Singapore? Will Singapore's judiciary, objectively settle political disputes without fear or favour?"

Singapore Urban Legends

"Some elections back when the 'Mentor' was PM, he threatened the electorate by saying he would find out why those who voted against the PAP did so. That was in a speech after an election when the public was beginning to be brave enough to rub the dictatorship up the right way. I still remember the sinister and menacing tone when Harry Lee made his open threat."

From A.K. Tan, in comment to Voting must be kept secret

Pleinelune and I went down to the National Archives during the weekend to verify this claim. A.K. Tan has to be referring to the 1984 General Elections, notable for the loss of 2 seats to the opposition JB Jeyaratnam (WP-Anson) and Chiam See Tong (SDP-Potong Pasir). As the election was on 23 December, we checked the Straits Times from 24-27 December.

Results:
There was no account of Papalee issuing threats to find out who voted for whom. The Straits Times in the 1980s had to print every single word of Papalee's speeches; we waded through 5 pages of his election victory speech, printed over 2 days, and found nothing similar to AK Tan's anecdote.

That's not to say there weren't any harsh lectures from the then-PM.

On the morning of 24 December 1984, Papalee made several interesting remarks:

Because they had begun losing seats to the opposition: "at this rate, the one-man, one-vote system could lead to decline and disintegration"

He accused the opposition of "gutter politics": "Every election campaign starts off on a reasonable note, then in order to get the crowds excited, they make more and more brazen, scurrilous, wild accusations." (Like for example, accusing their opponents of planting bombs with their election manifestos?)

Papalee sternly warned the electorate in Potong Pasir and Anson that they would have to live with their choices; "the party would withdraw services to the two opposition-held seats of Anson and Potong Pasir"

Of course, there were the usual admonitions about Singapore descending into riots, that the people must realise this is not a game, you cannot change governments, etc.

However, the best speech came from the recently deceased S Rajaratnam, then Second Deputy Prime Minister in Papalee's cabinet. Said the man wrote the national pledge: "If this is an attempt by voters to blackmail the government, to compromise on important issues or principles, then we must show them we cannot be blackmailed. No government should succumb to blackmail." That was the most chilling quote from the 1984 election, and it didn't come from Papalee.

It was Rajaratnam who made the threat AK Tan remembers. In "Genuine distress or blackmail, asks Raja", the then-2DPM wanted to find out whether the vote swing to the opposition was a genuine distress signal or an attempt by voters to blackmail the Whiteshirts. He then followed up by saying "we must show them that we cannot be blackmailed". Perhaps due to the passage of time, we now have the impression that it was Papalee who threatened "he would find out why those who voted against the PAP did so"?

Now, on that night, with Papalee raised a clenched fist at the microphone during the election victory speech and interview, with Rajaratnam, Mah Bow Tan, Richard Hu taking turns to reiterate their leader's disappointments, one threat would've seemed indistinguishable from the next.

So please, everyone. Let that urban legend rest. Papalee did not threaten to undermine the secrecy of the vote.

Further reading: myth of fairer press coverage in 2006 elections debunked

Singapore

Bad Democracy Awards

From OpenDemocracy






Lee Hsien Loong

Singapore's leadership may be the most pigheaded example of the notion that democracy is little more than a financial inefficiency. Ahead of elections this month, the prime minister continues to rely on the mantra that you can't make an economic omelette without silencing a few eggs. Thus it is that opposition parties are bullied, their leaders persecuted and their supporters intimidated. True, a smattering of democratic pretence has been added to the proceedings, but Lee, like his father before him, has manifestly failed to loosen the political reins. Aiming for a clean sweep in the poll, Lee has even sunk to suing opponents who dared to compare his manner of government to the running of Singapore's opaque National Kidney Foundation.

Click here to vote for LEE HSIEN LOONG
or on the image below.

And look who is already winning.

Spread the word and allow other Singaporeans to take part and vote for whomever they wish.

Singapore

Regional NGOs do not do enough for Singapore’s human rights issues

From Forum-Asia.

Regional NGOs do not do enough for Singapore’s human rights issues, says media and political activist

(Bangkok, 17 May 2006) Regional NGOs (non-governmental organisations) lack proper responses to human rights issues in Singapore, said a media and political activist during a discussion held at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand on 16 May 2006.

James Gomez, who was also an electoral candidate from the opposition Workers’ Party in Singapore, presented his observations and analysis at an informal discussion session in the Bangkok venue. This was attended by representatives from FORUM-ASIA, SEAPA (Southeast Asian Press Alliance), other organisations and journalists.

“Regional NGOs need to respond in a coordinated, timely and competent manner, and they need to show more interest,” said Gomez, referring to the recent Singapore parliamentary elections and the case involving himself in its aftermath.

Gomez was detained by the Singaporean authorities as he was about to leave the country after the elections, following a complaint by the Elections Department that he had intimated and threatened some of its staff. This was due to an incident arising from an administrative foul-up in his dealings with the department, which was “blown out of proportion” by Singapore’s mainstream media and made into an election issue by the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP). Charges were dropped against Gomez after about a week, and he was allowed to leave the country. He spent a few days in Bangkok to hold meetings with several organisations, en-route to Sweden where he works as a researcher.

Although a few regional NGOs sent representatives separately to observe and monitor the Singapore elections, the lack of appropriately strong responses from regional NGOs led Gomez to question the efficacy of regional organisations such as human rights and press freedom groups. “What is the human rights focus of these groups and how much of a priority is Singapore for human rights issues in the region?” He asked.

He emphasised that there will be a growing “buzz of political party activity” because civil society organisations are weak or almost non-existent in Singapore, so regional NGOs should increase their monitoring of human rights violations committed in particular against individuals from Singapore’s Opposition parties.

Ruki Fernando from FORUM-ASIA said that Singapore needs more activists like James Gomez to stir up public and regional interest, as well as more time to develop this interest. Roby Alampay from SEAPA said that his organisation cannot work with the government-dominated traditional media in Singapore, but sees potential with new media, for example bloggers – people who have personal websites on the internet.

“We can work with bloggers, but they need to have the courage to come out on their own as well,” said Alampay. “Momentum has to come from Singaporean bloggers, and we also need to see trends and progress.”

Lance Woodruff from Thai news agency MCOT said most regional NGOs and civil society organisations do not do much on Singapore not because of a lack of interest or concern. Instead, he said, there is a common perception based on the authorities’ reputation for restrictions: “‘They won’t allow you to do anything anyway, so why bother [to cover Singapore]?’”

Singapore has been ruled by the PAP since its independence in 1965. It is considered a “one-party” or “dominant-party” state, and the recent elections returned the PAP to power on the polling day, 6 May 2006. The Opposition retained its previous two out of 84 seats and did not gain any more seats in parliament.

Singapore

Two SDP leaders resign as party's fate hangs in balance

SINGAPORE: Two SDP leaders resign as party's fate hangs in balance
Singapore Democratic Party leaders send in resignation letters after having made apologies for newsletter defamation

Straits Times
Friday, May 19, 2006

By Aaron Low

Two leaders of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) have thrown in the towel even as the fate of their party hangs in the balance after its leadership decided not to fight a lawsuit brought against them by two People's Action Party (PAP) leaders.

Mr Kwan Yue Keng told The Straits Times yesterday that he and Mr Abdul Rasheed Abdul Kuthus sent in their resignation letters to party chief Chee Soon Juan earlier this month.

Both were among the initial four who apologised to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew for defaming them in articles written in the party's newsletter.

Meanwhile, several other SDP leaders, including party stalwarts Wong Hong Toy and Christopher Neo, are mulling over their future in politics, especially now that the party faces the real possibility of being closed down.

The SDP has until midnight tonight to file a defence with the High Court against the defamation suit but its leadership, at a central executive committee (CEC) meeting on Wednesday night, had voted against fighting it.

The SDP, its 12-member CEC as well as its printer were issued legal letters on April 21 demanding an apology and damages for articles in The New Democrat that alleged that the two PAP leaders knew about problems at the National Kidney Foundation but covered them up. On April 26, those who did not meet the demands were sued. More have since said sorry, except for Dr Chee and his sister Chee Siok Chin.

In the event that no defence is filed by the SDP, the party will be deemed to have defamed the two PAP leaders.

It will have to pay costs and damages to them and lawyer Leonard Loo expects the amount to be in the six-figure range.

"The suit was filed in the High Court, which means the plaintiffs are claiming at least $250,000. Of course, the final judgment will depend on several factors and the amount awarded may be less," said Mr Loo, 35, from Leonard Loo & Co.

Mr Abdul Kuthus, the SDP treasurer, said the party has only about $100 in its coffers and no other notable assets. Its office in Serangoon is rented for about $600 a month. The SDP was founded 26 years ago by veteran opposition MP Chiam See Tong, who left it in 1996 to form the Singapore People's Party.

Although it faces the prospect of being wound up when it fails to pay the costs and damages from the lawsuit, a precedent involving the Workers' Party (WP) suggests that may not always be the case.

In 1998, the High Court ruled the WP had defamed the organisers of the first Tamil Language Week in an article published in the party's newsletter in 1995.

The 10 members of the organising committee then petitioned to wind up the WP but withdrew it indefinitely a few months later, as they sought other ways to get the money from the party.

In the SDP, some CEC members are clinging to the hope that it can be saved by say, pooling their money to pay for the damages.

Said Mr Wong Hong Toy, 69, who has been with the party for 18 years: "We will probably have a meeting to discuss this when the outcome is known. But if it cannot be saved then I don't think I will join any other party."

Another CEC member, Mr Christopher Neo, 43, plans to continue in politics even if the party is shut down. "I'm still executive director at Think Centre (a civil society group) and I am not ruling out joining other parties," he said.

Date Posted: 5/19/2006

Singapore

Exiled dissident Tan Wah Piow on Singapore elections

Singapore

Singapore: New regime, old authority?
Yong Kai Ping and Kuek Ser Kuang Keng
Malaysiakini
May 6, 06

Is Singapore opening up under the new administration of Lee Hsien Loong? Are the new casinos a sign of greater freedom? Will the Singapore elections promise any breakthrough for democracy in Singapore?

For one of Singapore's most renowned dissident, Tan Wah Piow, the new regime under Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is experimenting with a slightly more liberal agenda to counter the cynicism among the young, but party politics is still very much under strict control.

According to Tan, the whole political process in Singapore is so "sterile" that nobody will challenge the state's authority unless the state feels there is a need to loosen up a bit for their own interest.

"In Singapore, they will give you the basic rights if only when they feel is good for them," Tan told malaysiakini while visiting friends in Kuala Lumpur last week.

Tan's 'infamy' stems from his student activism heydays at the National University of Singapore (NUS) during the 70s where he was jailed eight months for "inciting riots".

Fearing for his safety, Tan fled Singapore in 1975 and sought asylum in United Kingdom. Later he was admitted to Oxford and studied law. Currently holding a UK passport, Tan is a leading human rights lawyer in London.

Tan spoke extensively on Singapore's coming general election which takes place today. The People's Action Party (PAP) was denied a walk-over victory as in previous elections and now having to contest for 47 out of 84 parliamentary seats, an unprecedented event since 1988.

Q: How do you view the new administration under Lee Hsien Loong?

A: I don't see anything new in terms of mindset. They have made it illegal to campaign via blogging and text messaging during the elections.

Lee Hsien Loong tries to look as though he is giving the opposition a fighting chance. But why they need to take that kind of action against Chee Soon Juan (who was bankrupted for defamation by the government and thus not eligible to contest) if they want to show themselves as being democratic?

The message that you sent to the population is "don't mess around with us." That is the most serious consequence to Singapore's political culture.

It is reported that Lee Hsien Loong wants to wipe out all the opposition in the coming elections to gain a stronger mandate.

Goh Chok Tong's lost four seats when he first led PAP into an election. The second time, he lost two. It is not a question of losing the elections, but the percentage of votes obtained. The benchmark Hsien Loong will be judged on is probably Goh's first elections.

I think he will have to win with less than four opposition seats. However people say that the PAP is now fielding more professionals and they have also implemented the group representation constituencies (GRC) system. To win one (constituency) is already very difficult for the opposition, let alone a GRC.

Probably what they are most afraid of will be the active cynicism, the attitude of "I don't care, you will get in but I will dissociate with you" among the younger generation.

You can praise your own regime by whatever way, people just 'switch-off'. It means the justification for nation building is difficult for them. They won't identify with the party and the state, if I have to leave, I will leave (through migration).

So you think the PAP can't capture the people's attention? But there have been efforts since the 80's to get the people to be involved.

What they are doing appears to be extremely progressive in getting more public participation. There are a lot of those institutions for the old and young but the underlying motive behind is still the hegemony of one party, which is what distorts the whole process.

If you challenge the decision of the state, you will be accused of all kinds of things. They will undermine you before you start. The moment they smell that you have the opposition tendency, they will mark you and if you are really an oppositionist, then you will get into serious problems. If you exist as an individual, they can tolerate you as a eccentric, tolerate in the sense that they won't put you in jail. The moment they sense (you are) organising, then you are in deep trouble.

You don't think the regime is more open now? They are allowing gambling.

That is the neo-liberal economic philosophy, which needs not necessary involve political liberalism. I hope people are not misinterpreting this.

They are experimenting a bit of this and that, but that absolute control is undeniable.

Do you think they are experimenting with political liberalism?

I can't say they are exactly the same as the Lee Kuan Yew's regime, they are experimenting a slightly more liberal agenda but the party politics is still under very much direct control and monitoring.

They will never cease using the Internal Security Department (ISD) to monitor the opposition. I think once an instrument of the state is used to monitor the opposition to serve the ruling party, and not for national security, you can't call such a system democratic.

But why?

They need to respond to the demand of the younger generation, to address the perception that they (PAP) are intolerant and so on. They need to demonstrate that the government is open-minded and tolerant of dissent.

I suppose that is why the senior Lee (Kuan Yew) wanted to test the younger generation's disappointment. The (televised) debate among Kuan Yew and the youths ended up as (a debate) on whether it is right to be disrespectful (to Kuan Yew), but that is not the issue.

So do you still pin the hope on the younger generation?

I think in every political process, they still need new ideas. The youths seem more distracted and show more concern for materialism than political ideals. Singapore wanted to use, although not overtly, Israel as a model to harden national consensus and the sense of national survival.

But I think that is a different context because Israel is very different from Singapore in terms of ethnicity, religion and so on. You can't copy the whole model, the idealism and the sense of nationalism, The urgency is not there.

The whole justification that Singapore can't have democratic space is that you are surrounded, and thus adopting a kind of 'under siege' mentality. You might get some support in the early period but not in this age. I can always pack up and go, then come back to Singapore as a visitor.

There is definitely a close political culture and historical link between Singapore and Malaysia. It is better for us to emphasise on our common destiny instead of differences. Is it by coincidence that the younger generation did not feel any affinity for Malaysia or is it the consequences of the way the Singapore state handles the relationship. I think Singaporeans will know more about Europe or Australia or those places where the culture is alien compared to Malaysia. We have to ask ourselves, is this healthy? Can Singapore's long term destiny be completely independent from Malaysia?

You think Malaysians have the same misunderstanding towards Singaporeans?

If you study in Britain, then you will know how people in the campus look at Singaporeans. There is the impression that they are arrogant, does not have that kind of maturity to understand the differences and disparity; and that they always think they are more sophisticated. In UK campuses, the 'kiasu' mentality is alive and kicking.

Malaysian Chinese may see Singapore as a heaven for career, and really, Singapore, I must say, is very well managed. (But) that cannot be a justification for the restraints in giving political rights. I think Singapore is effective because it has a powerful state intervention apparatus which is far better than any industrialised country.

Someone told me that the government is giving more publicity to the opposition. Apparently Lee Hsien Long is trying to appear to have a clean fight so that they can enjoy a more convincing win. And PAP will win convincingly again.

The whole political process in Singapore is so sterile that nobody will challenge the state's authority unless the state feels there is the need to relax a bit for their interest. In Singapore, they will give you the basic rights if only when they feel is good for them. That's why I can never agree with them.



PAP may be able to contain the opposition but it may not be able to deal with one enemy - that is, itself.

PAP has been in power for so long that it has become arrogant and thought it could do whatever it wants to the people. It forgets that time has changed and people are beginning to wake up to the reality of their circumstances.

PAP's habit of keeping Singaporeans "brain dead" could have backfired on the party. It has not been able to get members who can think critically and creatively. Most of its members are brilliant scholars but not real problem solvers. For quite a long time, these scholars have not been able to solve the structural unemployment problem in Singapore. And this is probably one of the main reasons for the dip in the votes for PAP.

Musical talent crushed

Mr Wang explores the hindsight of National Service for one young musical prodigy:

Now Mr Wang will predict the most probable outcome of this matter. Of course I hope I am wrong, but this is what I predict will happen:

1. Some cowardly high-ranking MINDEF officer will make the cover-ass, stupid but eminently defensible decision to not allow Ike's NS deferment.

2. (".... National Service is very important. It is the duty of every male Singaporean to serve NS. We must be fair and impartial. National Service is a character-building experience that makes our boys men ... ") [take the Defence Minister's last SAF Day speech & cut & paste miscellaneous other blah blah blah statements.]

3. Unthinking Singaporeans will nod their heads approvingly.

4. Ike See will do his NS and become another perfectly mediocre, ordinary, faceless corporal or sergeant out of 20,000 other perfectly mediocre, ordinary, faceless NSF corporals and sergeants in the SAF.

5. Upon ORD, he will do a desperate rush to make up for the precious lost years in his musical training. He will realise that to do this, he can't afford to stay in Singapore any longer (this will be the only valuable lesson he will learn from his NS years - but it will be an immensely valuable lesson).

6. He leaves Singapore. For good.

7. In time, some future PAP Minister for the Arts who had never known or will have forgotten Ike See will say, "Oh, Singapore must aspire to be a world-class hub for the arts. Singaporeans lack creativity and talent but we must encourage what we have, and create alternative avenues of success in our society."

Meanwhile MINDEF will continue to grant NS deferments to male PSC Overseas Merit Scholars. Year after year after year, as schools like RJC and NJC and VJC continue to manufacture, by the hundreds, perfectly straight-A students who have memorised their way to great success in standardised exam formats. While the really rare, special ones - like Ike See - will continue to be overlooked, and will continue to languish.

- Read full article..

As they say, the sky is the limit for artists and musicians in Singapore. But this understandably poses a great dilemma and paradox. Because the entire idea of National Service is founded on the basis that every male has his patriotic and equal duty to serve and defend his country, regardless of religion, race, or sexual orientation. Even the Jahovah's Witness have to compromise their own religious values to be considered 'Singaporean'. By granting deferment to some individuals, one could start to get the impression that equality in the Singaporean military's context doesn't exactly come without its fine print. What defines the boundaries of making one worthy of NS deferment? Why do these 'elitists' retain the right to call themselves Singaporean while others dedicate 2 - 3 years of the better part of their youth?

It may be for such reasons to prevent opening the floodgates of ethical discussion, that Ike See (the gifted musician in question) will have to do NS. All this at the expense of one boy's future. And Mr Wang has realistically noted the great sense of irony that this boy may one day come to realise. Everything that was done in the name of "character-building" has worked against his own future. In the end, he will become simply another patriot lost, and a talent wasted, while Singapore scratches its head wondering where the talent went.

Singapore

You can't fight for democracy on bended knees

From the Singapore Democrat:

For the past seven days, the Singapore Democrats have been in here 9Sam's Alfresco Coffee Shop) taking jabs, upper cuts and even a couple of left hooks. Several more embraced us and gave us a hearty "Fight on!"

I'd like to do a quick round up of some of the more memorable moments.

Playing by the rules

Some of you felt that the SDP needed to soften its image, keep a lower profile, adopt a different direction altogether or do all three. In other words, don't clash head-on with the PAP. Play within the rules.

Yes, we said. But please, pray tell, what are the rules? The PAP changes them like it changes underwear.

First they introduce the GRC system, then they say that political videos are banned, then the threaten voters with upgrading, then they increase the candidate's election deposit by almost 170 percent, then they give out money during elections, then they require nominators to be present at the Nominating Centres, then they outlaw podcasting, then they require the candidates to pay for security...what next? Electronic voting?

Yes, electronic voting. When that happens, we will not need counting agents anymore because there will be nothing to count. All the votes will be reduced to binary bits and bytes, and tallied by a computer program. Scary, isn't it?

Can we at least get an independent body to make the rules where contesting parties have a say instead of leaving everything to the PAP? How dumb does the PAP think we are, anyway? (Pretty dumb, actually, if you consider the fact that they've been winning ten elections on the trot - hands down! And the way things look presently another ten in the years to come if we don't do anything about it.)

This is why the Singapore Democrats are yelling to whoever will listen that we've got to get the rules governing democratic elections down pat. That means making sure that the newspapers won't print 7 pages of we-love-you type of reports for the PAP and one ok-so-you're-contesting page for the opposition. It also means ensuring that the people can assemble in between elections not just to go for RC walk-a-jogs but to stage meaningful and peaceful protests.

Without reform the opposition will still be getting dragged from pillar to post even when the MM is 120 years old.

Without reform we will never be able to stop the kind of talk that Mr Lee Hsien Loong makes about "fixing" the opposition and "buying" support.

Without reform we would never be able to look our children in the eye and tell them that we stopped them from reciting the lie in school everyday that we are building "a democratic society, based on justice and equality."

Using Nonviolence

So what do we do? The SDP suggested that we take a serious look into the use of Nonviolent Civil Action and, if need be, civil disobedience to persuade the PAP to refrain from bullying the opposition and the people.

Cries of "Our situation is different from that of other countries", "Singaporeans are too immature", "We can't achieve democracy overnight" immediately went up from some forumers.

We explained that NV Civil Action is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Activists in every country and society need to look at the circumstances in which they operate and tailor the principle of NV (which is essentially the proactive use of peaceful means to achieve a political/social/economic goal) for their own needs.

The Singapore Democrats continue to have faith in our people and that Singaporeans do care about values such as justice, political rights, and information free-flow. This is not conjecture because 40 years ago, Singaporeans demonstrated that they cared about freedom and democracy when they sacked the British colonialists from the island.

It is the PAP, after it took control of the country, that drummed into our heads that we are a useless people who would degenerate into incompetent "lumpen masses" without PAP control (to quote a certain Mr Lee).

On the point about achieving democracy overnight, the SDP would be the last to say that the reform effort can be carried out hurriedly. As Rome was not built in a day, so democracies cannot be delivered express. Strategies need to be thought out, activists need to be trained, and people need to be made aware. This will take much time which is all the more reason for us to start now.

'Now' means 27 May 2006. It's the day when the SDP will organise a workshop to draw up an action-agenda that will chart out a Road Map for Democracy in Singapore (please see other announcement in other post). We hope to see you then.

Thank you

We promised we would stop making a nuisance of ourselves after seven days and we will keep to our word and take leave of this forum. It has been wonderful meeting you even though we have not seen a single face or shaken a solitary hand.

On behalf of Charles Tan, Chee Siok Chin, and Gandhi Ambalam, I thank all of you for coming into this thread and making our political lives that much richer. We hope that we have done the same for you.

Our only regret is that we have not been able to respond to all of your posts or have done so inadequately. For that, please accept our sincerest apologies. Perhaps we will find another opportunity to exchange our views.

But even as we leave cyberspace, we will be here in real space to continue to speak up for you. We ask that you make our fight less lonely by coming forth and joining us in our struggle.

Throughout the week our message to our fellow Singaporeans has been: Have courage. You cannot fight for democracy on bended knees! We carry this message with us into the future.

Yours truly,

Chee Soon Juan
Singapore Democrats

Singapore

New specialist Community Court to be set up

Channelnewsasia.com: "SINGAPORE: A new specialist Community Court will be set up next month to deal with young offenders, those with mental disabilities and attempted suicide cases.

A Family Centre will also be launched to help couples deal with the legal and emotional aspects of divorce.

These were unveiled by Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong at his first Subordinate Courts Workplan address.

All these are part of the need for new responses to meet the more complex challenges at home and internationally.

The Community Court will deal with cases involving
- young offenders between 16 to 18 years old;
- offenders with mental disabilities;
- parties in neighbourhood disputes;
- offenders in attempted suicide cases;
- young offenders in carnal connection offences;
- those in family violence cases;
- offenders who abuse animals; and
- cases which impact race relations.

'There will be sufficient linkages with community resources to allow for the successful re-integration of individuals back into community settings. In appropriate cases, offenders who would ordinarily be prison-bound would be linked to long-term community-based treatment. To further enhance the administration of criminal justice, I will chair a review panel to look at how current sentencing and bail guidelines can be further improved and rationalised,' said Chan Sek Keong, Chief Justice.

Court 20 at the Subordinate Courts has been designated the new Community Court.

Such a Community Court is seen as timely, as the number of youth offenders went up 14% last year compared to 2004.

The aims of the Community Court are the same as other courts - to prevent and reduce the incidence of crimes.

But there is also the recognition that special management of these offenders may lead to a higher chance of rehabilitation.

'We also try to map out their future plans by putting them in schools, employment, national service. In prison, they are locked up and when they come out, they may not have all this support,' said Razwana Begum, Probation Officer for the Community Development, Youth and Sport Ministry.

The Family Relations Centre at the Family & Juvenile Court will be staffed by specialist judges and trained counsellors to provide divorcing couples legal and therapeutic solutions on custody and other matters.

Other changes announced include a pro-active approach to manage medical negligence cases to promote the resolution of cases without the need for court action. The new initiatives will be implemented in the year ahead. - CNA /dt

Our CJ has been busy indeed.

Channel X

No, it's not a podcast. Nor is it a midnight adult channel. This appears to be probably the first real attempt at an amateur video documentary series I've seen on Singaporean politics. "Nathan Chan", as the synthesized voice-over claims to be, admits most of the content probably isn't going to be new to you. Especially if you hang around Singabloodypore alot. Despite the low-resolution, the video clip offers in addition to a narrative, a mix of news footage, slide shows, and original animation that surely deserves some credit. Especially if it's coming from just one guy. I would certainly be interested to see how he carries on with this project...

channel-x.blogspot.com

Singapore

Smutocracy is a facade for democracy

From The Age:

By Michael Backman

When will Lee Kuan Yew die? Sadly, that is the question now on the minds of many Singaporeans. At 82, Lee retains a cabinet post, with the title Minister Mentor, continues to dominate the Government and shows no sign of quitting. But many believe that although he has done much for Singapore, he is now the greatest impediment to reform, and that little can change until after he is gone.

Last week, Lee admonished the younger generation for not fully supporting the People's Action Party at the elections the weekend before. It's a usual claim: young Singaporeans are insufficiently grateful for all that the older PAP leaders have done for them in developing the economy. It's as if a country's progress should be measured only by material comfort. The problem for Lee is that young people in other developed countries have money and freedom of expression. But in Singapore, all they have is money. Young Singaporeans are beginning to see that a gilded cage is a cage, nonetheless.

To combat this growing restiveness, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong ?Lee's son ?talks of political regeneration in his efforts to make the PAP appeal to younger people. But it's the same old tricks, if last week's elections are anything to go by. The ruling PAP won two-thirds of the votes. The real surprise is that it didn't win by more, given all the petty restrictions designed to head off opposition.

The PAP faced two main opposition parties: the Singapore Democratic Party and the Workers' Party. The SDP's leadership was hit with a series of defamation writs from the two Lees soon after the elections were called. It managed to win one of the two seats not won by the PAP.

The Workers' Party won the other seat. James Gomez, one of its leading candidates, blamed the elections department for losing one of his required polling forms at the start of the campaign. He moderately chastised a member of the department's staff for the apparent loss. But it turned out he had put the form in his brief case and had left the building without lodging it. He claimed this was an oversight ?he was distracted ?and he publicly apologised. But the PAP accused him of attempting to set up the elections commission.

The incident dominated the nine-day campaign. The Prime Minister, Deputy Prime Minister, other ministers and the Government-controlled media raised it repeatedly. The highly litigious Lee Kuan Yew publicly labelled Gomez a liar.

The day after the election, Gomez was detained at Changi Airport. His boarding pass and passport were confiscated and police questioned him for eight hours. The next day he was questioned for five hours. A day later he was questioned for another three hours. That's 16 hours of police questioning over whether or not he intentionally put something in his brief case. The Public Prosecutor announced on Friday Gomez would not be charged but would be let off with a "stern warning".

Certainly, it's true that integrity is important in politics. That's why so many people were surprised back in 1996 when it was revealed that Lee Kuan Yew and many family members had accepted large discounts on a series of expensive apartments in Singapore from a local property developer, on whose board sat one of Lee's brothers. Lee and Lee Hsien Loong received more than $S1 million ($A829,000) in discounts, discounts that were in excess of the usual discounts offered in the market.

The company was later censured by the local stock exchange for not seeking shareholder approval for favourable transactions with related parties.

Lee has claimed that the election result demonstrates to foreign investors that Singapore is politically stable, which is good for business.

But his argument is simplistic. North Korea is politically stable but who wants to invest there? And Australia periodically changes government, has a free media and attracts plenty of investors, including many from Singapore.

But how good is Singapore, really? As every expatriate in Singapore knows, Singapore's media is appalling. Sex is covered endlessly. Rape and incest cases are described in unnecessary minutiae, as are instances of alleged sexual deviance ("Oh, isn't it dreadful?" is the line usually taken before the incident is recounted in slavish detail.) In essence, Singaporeans are fed a regular diet of soft porn, perhaps as compensation for precious little political debate. That's not democracy. It's smutocracy.

Academic freedom is also stunted. Daniel Bell, a prominent writer and academic who has taught at universities in Singapore and Beijing, writes in the latest issue of the respected intellectual journal Dissent that for him, "China is a paradise of academic freedom" after Singapore. The governments of both countries practise media censorship but after a newspaper in China ran some of his comments in an interview, but not others, the editor rang him to apologise. Not so in Singapore, where according to Bell, "public humiliation is a more common tactic for dealing with those who do not toe the party line". Singapore might be rich but it is out of step.

Meanwhile, Thailand faces fresh elections after the Thai courts declared invalid those that were held last month. Prime Minister Thaksin had called the elections due to huge public disapproval of the sale of his family's massive telecommunications assets to an arm of the Singapore Government. Tax changes meant that his family saved millions on the sale.

And this weekend there are elections in the wealthy Malaysian state of Sarawak. The family of Chief Minister Abu Taib Mahmud has accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars in timber concessions and public works contracts while he has been in office. No doubt he is heading for a landslide win. Stability is indeed good for business.

Just as the position of 'Minister Mentor' was invented with LKY, how likely is it that it will vanish just as quickly with him? Seriously, what is this fictional position that allows him to virtually stay in power and earn a salary (out of your pockets)? Please retire sir, so that we can all have a more democratic and liberal society, so that we may have more diversity and meaningful politics in our media, and so that we no longer have to read soft porn in the Straits Times.

Singapore

Voting must be seen to be secret

Excellent Article by MSM

Voting must be seen to be secret
By Siew Kum Hong, TODAY
First Published 15 May 2006





SINGAPORE: Your polling card states which voting lane you must use. The serial number of the ballot slip issued to you is recorded against your name. "They" can trace you, and "they" will blacklist or even "get" you, if you vote for the Opposition.

This is the urban legend that never dies, is raised and dismissed every election. It surfaced before and during the recent campaign, and continues to be talked about even days after Polling Day. It has a longevity surpassing the campaign and the issues raised.

Yes, credit must be given where it is due. I have voted twice, and voting was a breeze on both occasions: Fast, simple and efficient, a bit of an anti-climax even. That is no mean feat, and the Elections Department deserves fulsome praise for it.

But people do fear that voting is not secret, and it is not limited to the uneducated, the paranoid or virgin voters.

On Polling Day, a civil servant in her mid-30s told me how proud she was of herself, and how adult she felt - because she had finally overcame her fears and voted according to her conscience, something she had not been able to do in past elections.

It is worrisome when even professionals and repeat voters are afraid. It would be a mistake to simply dismiss these fears as being irrational and unjustified, without taking concrete steps to address them.

The main grouses surround the serialised ballot slips, the recording of serial numbers, and the allocated voting lanes.

The Elections Department has stated that the reasons are to deter ballot stuffing, prevent voter impersonation, and make voting smoother ("Why your vote is secret", May 10). But have they accomplished those objectives?

The serialisation of ballot slips neither prevents nor deters ballot stuffing. It only makes obvious any attempt to do so.

But even without this, any discrepancy between the number of voters and ballots would still be obvious - given how strictly the identities of voters are tracked. In any case, the only way to prevent ballot stuffing is to ensure the presence and vigilance of election officers and candidates' agents at all points of the process - which is already done.

The recording of serial numbers is to prevent impersonation. But a voter must produce both his identity card (IC) and polling card before voting. This is known as the two-factor authentication, whereby there are two criteria to be fulfilled before a person's identity is authenticated. It is more secure than the single-factor authentication used for online governmental transactions (SingPass) and Internet banking (password).

If a person loses or misplaces his IC, the polling card would have been sent to his address and would not have been lost. If a person changes his address, whoever received the polling card would not have the IC. Only persons close to someone would have access to both his IC and polling card - a situation that is hardly conducive to electoral fraud.

And if a person's identity is impersonated, then the problem lies in a failure by the voting officer to match the photograph in the IC with the person presenting it. The recording of serial numbers does not prevent this risk at all.

Furthermore, what happens if someone does allege that a third party had impersonated him to cast a vote? Will the Elections Department search through every ballot to identify the ballot corresponding to the complainant? But what would this achieve? And without CCTV footage of every single vote cast, how would the authorities ascertain that the complainant had not, in fact, cast the vote which is now being challenged?

Finally, I am not convinced that allocation of voting lanes is necessary for smooth voting. Why can't allocation of voting lanes be done on the spot? After all, that is how Changi Airport manages its taxi queues, and it does a wonderful job of channelling masses of people to different stations.

Just as justice must be done and seen to be done, voting must be secret and seen to be secret. The reality is that some voters are unconvinced that their votes are secret. Therefore, the onus is on the authorities to review the practices in question and determine whether they are needed and whether they actually achieve their stated objectives.

Otherwise, say what we will about the integrity of the electoral process and the need to defend it, some people will always view the process as flawed and suspect, and that is not an ideal situation to have in an otherwise efficient system. - TODAY /dt

The writer is a lawyer commenting in his personal capacity.

Another ST letter AKA purified stupidity

Sometimes I worry more about the people of Singapore rather than what the government itself is doing. When I read letters like this, I actually start to think that eugenics is a good idea. Or maybe I am missing the whole point, and this is the best piece of satire I've ever read.

At least, I hope that's what it is.

Gomez case shows justice is very much alive

I REFER to the article, 'Gomez let off with a stern warning' (ST, May 13).

When news broke that Mr James Gomez had been hauled up by the police as he was checking in at Changi Airport to fly back to Sweden on May 7, coffee-shop gossip was abuzz with wild rumours that the People's Action Party (PAP) was once again using scare tactics against the opposition.

Fuelled by rumour-mongering, the saga soon became a game of chance. People betted heavily that Mr Gomez would eventually be charged in court and slapped with a hefty term of imprisonment. This, the gamblers believed, was because the judiciary was under the control of the executive.

So, when it was reported that he was let off with a stern warning, many punters were left poorer by a couple of hundred dollars. However, the losses incurred by punters are not relevant to the saga.

What is relevant and significant is this: it is crystal clear that, in Singapore, the executive has no clout in influencing the judiciary (Attorney-General's Chambers) to 'dance to its tune' and prosecute its opponents.

It appears to be the notion of the man in the street that justice is blind to anyone who is deemed to be an adversary of the PAP.

I trust that the knuckle-rapping meted out to Mr Gomez will change the mindsets of those who believe the PAP is authoritarian and it must always be its 'way or the highway'.

The laws of Singapore dictate that the public prosecutor is vested with absolute discretion in recommending the course of action to be taken in criminal cases.
In the Gomez case, he was certainly not absolved of any wrongdoing.

The learned public prosecutor, after reviewing the evidence in the case and taking into consideration the mitigating factors, recommended to the police that a stern warning be administered to Mr Gomez.

It is therefore pertinent for local rumour-mongers, as well as foreign adversaries of Singapore, to take note that justice in Singapore is very much alive, and that Singapore's judiciary is definitely independent of the executive.
Majulah Singapura!

Lionel De Souza

Singapore

Now it’s baby trafficking in Singapore

From The Statesman

Arlina Arshad

SINGAPORE, May 15: At a Waterloo Street temple in Singapore, a man in his 60s approaches an Indonesian Chinese woman to ask if she has a baby to sell. The silver-haired man, who goes by the name Ah Meng, tells her he knows of childless Singaporean couples who would pay good money for babies. The price: 30 million rupiah (about $3,185).

A business is born ~ in baby-trafficking. That is what Muliati, 34, also known as Ah Kik, told Batam police about how she got into the trade two years ago. She was nabbed at her home on 9 January with three babies bound for Singapore.
Another woman, Fong Chee Hua, 44, also known as Ah Hua, was detained too. She was arrested at her house on the same day with another baby, also meant for a Singaporean.

The baby trade is not a complicated business, going by what the two women told us while they were in custody.

The source of supply was poor families in Medan, Indonesia, who gave the babies to a woman who went by the name of Xiulan. Xiulan, in turn, got 6 million rupiah ($637) for a baby from Ah Kik. Generally, say sources, families are paid one million to two million rupiah ($106-212) per baby.

Xiulan would call Ah Hua in Batam whenever she came by babies. Ah Hua would arrange to pick them up and house them at her home in Kampung Utama in Batam, or at Ah Kik’s home in Ramada Indah. Batam Island is about 20 km from Singapore. Ah Hua received about 25,000 rupiah ($2.65) a day to look after one baby and a lump sum of 600,000 rupiah ($63) a month as “commission”.

In the one-hour interview at the Batam Lubukbaja district police station last month, the plump woman said in Bahasa Indonesia: “My daughter is grown up. I had nothing to do at home, so I became a nanny. Ah Kik paid for diapers and milk, so I did not need to come up with a single cent.” On the Singapore side, Ah Meng would call Ah Kik whenever there was a Singaporean couple wanting a baby. He would then accompany them to the women’s homes to choose one.

“Ah Meng rejected four babies before. He said they were not swee,” Ah Kik said. Swee in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect, means good-looking. “Singaporeans like fair and cute babies,” she said, adding that Singapore-bound babies were of Chinese or Chinese-Malay parentage.

She hired three women to care for the babies. They too have been detained. Her neighbour, who wanted to be known as Madam Ebi, 30, said there were 10 young children at Ah Kik’s house at any one time.

She said: “I thought they were her kids but they were different all the time. Some looked Chinese, others looked Malay. They would play outside, riding their little scooters and running about.” The three-storey house was quiet when we visited. Baby clothing was hung out to dry and a blue stroller was outside. The doors were open but nobody responded to repeated calls.

Madam Ebi added: “Muliati didn’t like to mix around. She had many visitors, all Chinese, but they would come at night.” When the Singaporean couple had made their choice, Ah Meng gave Ah Kik 15 million rupiah ($1,592) ~ half of the agreed price for a baby ~ to help pay the various people involved. He and the Singaporean couple would return to Singapore the same or the following day. A delivery date would be arranged, usually a week or two later. Next, Ah Kik asked an Indonesian man named Ah Siong to make passports for the babies, at 10 million rupiah ($1,061) each ~ 38 times the price of a genuine one. Ah Kik would ferry the baby from Batam Centre to Harbour Front Ferry Terminal in Singapore, where Ah Meng would be waiting, alone or accompanied by the baby’s prospective parents. The final payment of 15 million rupiah would change hands.

Nine babies were brought in this way over the last two years, Ah Kik said. “Only once, a Singapore immigration officer stopped to ask where I was going with the baby. I told him the baby was sick and needed to see the doctor. He let me in,” she added. Ah Hua said she took a baby across last November, and was paid 3 million rupiah ($318) for the job. We tried to reach Ah Meng on his mobile phone, but the number had been disconnected. In Singapore, according to the Children and Young Persons Act, bringing or helping to bring a child into Singapore by or under false pretence, false representation, or fraudulent or deceitful means within or outside Singapore, is an offence.

Last year, the ministry of community development, Youth and Sports processed 556 applications for adoption. Of these, 56 per cent were for the adoption of foreign children. Under Indonesian law, Ah Kik and Ah Hua can be jailed for up to 15 years each if convicted of baby trafficking. Ah Kik said she regrets what she has done. Ah Hua added: “I know it was wrong. I did this because I needed money.”

They were composed but guarded during the interview. District police chief Karimuddin Ritonga said: “When they were first caught, they cried non-stop for several days, claiming to be innocent. We had trouble getting them to talk.” Acting on an informant’s tip-off, his staff nabbed Ah Hua red-handed at her house on Jan 9. She claimed the baby was her adopted son but admitted it was for sale after questioning. She spilled the beans on Ah Kik, who was caught later the same day with three babies for sale.

The women said they travelled to Singapore several times a month to shop and eat. Ah Hua said: “I’d go there with my daughter and walk around the East Coast malls. Sometimes, we would stay overnight at a budget hotel.” Ah Kik said she had been praying at the Waterloo Street temple for a long time. But when asked about Ah Meng, the women shrugged and said they knew little about him.

Said Karimuddin: “They are still hiding a lot of information. We will grill them further.”

The Straits Times/ANN

Singapore

Nigerian teenager on death row in Singapore

Drugs Act: Nigerian teenager on death row in Singapore

May 16, 2006.

By ANDnetwork .com

Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, 19, a Nigerian, is on death row in Singapore for trafficking in hard drugs.

He was arrested alongside Okele Nelson Malachy at Changi Airport on November 27, 2004 accused of transporting 727.02 grammes of heroin to the country.
Malachy’s nationality is not known.

They were convicted under the Misuse of Drugs Act, which carries a mandatory death sentence for anyone found guilty of trafficking in more than 15 grammes of heroin.

Tochi was the first to be arrested after his luggage was searched. He identified Malachy during police investigation.

Convicted by the court of first instance, both appealed, but lost the case on March 16, 2006.

Their only hope for clemency lies with the President of that country.

Singapore is notorious for its stranglehold on the press and civil society organisations as well as abuse of human rights.

There is little public debate about death penalty.

With a population of just over four million, the Asian country is believed to have the highest per capita execution rate in the world.

More than 420 persons have been executed since 1991, the majority for drug trafficking.

The Drugs Act provides for a mandatory death sentence for at least 20 different offences and contains a series of presumptions which shifts the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defence. The government is adamant that death penalty is not a human rights issue, even though organisations such as Amnesty International (AI) oppose it in all cases.

AI sees it as a violation of one of the most fundamental human rights: The right to life.

It describes it as "the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and there is no escaping the risk of error, which can lead to the execution of an innocent person".

In April 2005, Singapore denied a permit to an AI official to speak at a conference on death penalty organised by opposition leaders and human rights activists.

United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston, remarked in his report on March 24, 2006 that "Measures taken by the Government of Singapore suggest an attempt to suppress public debate about the death penalty in the country…."

He had previously called for death penalty to be eliminated for drug-related offences since the mandatory nature of death sentence violates international legal standards.

To save Tochi, Nigerians abroad have urged civil society groups around the world to send appeals to the Singaporean cabinet to recommend that the President grant him and Malachy clemency and commute their death sentences.

The Nigerian embassy may equally intervene.

Source : Independentng

APPEALS TO:

The President
His Excellency S R Nathan
Office of the President
Istana, Orchard Road
Singapore 0922
Fax:+65 6735 3135
Email:s_r_nathan@istana.gov.sg
Salutation: Your Excellency

COPIES TO:
Prime Minister
Lee Hsien Loong
Office of the Prime Minister
Istana Annexe, Orchard Road
Singapore 0923
Fax: +65 6732 4627
Email:lee_hsien_loong@pmo.gov.sg

Minister of Law
Professor S. Jayakumar
Ministry of Law
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The Treasury 08-02
Singapore 179434
Fax: +65 6332 8842

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Fax:+1 212 826 2964

PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.

Singapore

'Singapore 'bigger than PAP' - Ngiam

Link to Part One
Link to Part Two

By Susan Long.

Time to get off the autopilot, says a former civil servant

SINCE Mr Ngiam Tong Dow retired from the civil service in 1999, affairs of state have weighed heavily on his mind. The highly respected former Permanent Secretary worries about Singapore's long-term survival and the kind of society the next generation will inherit. At 66, the HDB Corp chairman insists he is 'no radical', just a concerned Singaporean with three grandchildren, who wonders 'whether there will be a Singapore for them in 50 years' time'. In Tea with Think, a weekly interview series, he gives a candid appraisal of the civil service, and his prognosis of what the lack of an alternative political leadership means for Singapore. The interview will be continued next week.

Q. With all this pessimism surrounding Singapore's prospects today, what's your personal prognosis? Will Singapore survive Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew?

A. Unequivocally yes, Singapore will survive SM Lee but provided he leaves the right legacy. What sort of legacy he wants to leave is for him to say, but I, a blooming upstart, dare to suggest to him that we should open up politically and allow talent to be spread throughout our society so that an alternative leadership can emerge. So far, the People's Action Party's tactic is to put all the scholars into the civil service because it believes the way to retain political power forever is to have a monopoly on talent. But in my view, that's a very short term view. It is the law of nature that all things must atrophy. Unless SM allows serious political challenges to emerge from the alternative elite out there, the incumbent elite will just coast along. At the first sign of a grassroots revolt, they will probably collapse just like the incumbent Progressive Party to the left-wing PAP onslaught in the late 1950s. I think our leaders have to accept that Singapore is larger than the PAP.

Q. What would be a useful first step in opening up?

A. For Singapore to survive, we should release half our talent - our President and Overseas Merit scholars - to the private sector. When ten scholars come home, five should turn to the right and join the public sector or the civil service; the other five should turn to the left and join the private sector. These scholars should serve their bond to Singapore - not to the Government - by working in or for Singapore overseas. As matters stand, those who wish to strike out have to break their bonds, pay a financial penalty and worse, be condemned as quitters. But it takes a certain temperament and mindset to be a civil servant. The former head of the civil service, Sim Kee Boon, once said that joining the administrative service is like entering a royal priesthood. Not all of us have the temperament to be priests. However upright a person is, the mandarin will in time begin to live a gilded life in a gilded cage. As a Permanent Secretary, I never had to worry whether I could pay my staff their wages. It was all provided for in the Budget. As chairman of DBS Bank, I worried about wages only 20 per cent of the time. I now face my greatest business challenge as chairman of HDB Corp, a new start-up spun off from HDB. I spend 90 per cent of my time worrying whether I have enough to pay my staff at the end of the month. It's a mental switch.

Q. What is your biggest worry about the civil service?

A. The greatest danger is we are flying on auto-pilot. What was once a great policy, we just carry on with more of the same, until reality intervenes. Take our industrial policy. At the beginning, it was the right thing for us to attract multinationals to Singapore. For some years now, I've been trying to tell everybody: 'Look, for God's sake, grow our own timber.' If we really want knowledge to be rooted in Singaporeans and based in Singapore, we have to support our SMEs. I'm not a supporter of SMEs just for the sake of more SMEs but we must grow our own roots. Creative Technology's Sim Wong Hoo is one and Hyflux's Olivia Lum is another but that's too few. We have been flying on auto-pilot for too long. The MNCs have contributed a lot to Singapore but they are totally unsentimental people. The moment you're uncompetitive, they just relocate.

Q. Why has this come about?

A. I suspect we have started to believe our own propaganda.

There is also a particular brand of Singapore elite arrogance creeping in. Some civil servants behave like they have a mandate from the emperor. We think we are little Lee Kuan Yews. SM Lee has earned his spurs, with his fine intellect and international standing. But even Lee Kuan Yew sometimes doesn't behave like Lee Kuan Yew. There is also a trend of intellectualisation for its own sake, which loses a sense of the pragmatic concerns of the larger world. The Chinese, for example, keep good archives of the Imperial examinations which used to be held at the Temple of Heaven. At the beginning, the scholars were tested on very practical subjects, such as how to control floods in their province. But over time, they were examined on the Confucian Analects and Chinese poetry composition. Hence, they became emasculated by the system, a worrying fate which could befall Singapore.

Q. But aren't you an exception to the norm of the gilded mandarin with zero bottomline consciousness?

A. That's because I started out with Economic Development Board in the 1959. Investment promotion then was all about hard foot slogging and personal persuasion, which teaches you to be very humble and patient. I learnt to be a supplicant and a professional beggar, instead of a dispenser of favours. These days, most civil servants start out administering the law. If I had my way, every administrative officer would start his or her career in the EDB. Hard foot slogging.

Stop dancing to the tune of the gorilla.

By Susan Long.

Part Two of the much-talked-about interview with ex-civil servant Ngiam Tong Dow

Q. YOUR idea of creating an alternate elite is not new. What do you think of the oft-mooted suggestion of achieving that splitting ranks within the People's Action Party?

A. Quite honestly, if you ask me, Team A-and-Team B is a synthetic and infantile idea.

If you want to challenge the Government, it must be spontaneous. You have to allow some of your best and brightest to remain outside your reach and let them grow spontaneously. How do you know their leadership will not be as good as yours? But if you monopolise all the talent, there will never be an alternative leadership. And alternatives are good for Singapore.

Q. In your calculation, what are the odds of this alternative replacing the incumbent?

A. Of course there's a political risk. Some of these chaps may turn out to be your real opposition, but that is the risk the PAP has to take if it really wants Singapore to endure.

A model we should work towards is the French model of the elite administration. The very brightest of France all go to university or college. Some emerge Socialists, others Conservative, some work in industries, some work in government. Yet, at the end of the day, when the chips are down, they are all Frenchmen. No member of the French elite will ever think of betraying his country, never. That is the sort of Singapore elite we want. It doesn't mean that all of us must belong to the PAP. That is very important.

Q. What do bad times mean for the PAP, which has based its legitimacy on providing the economic goods and asset enhancement? Is its social compact with the people in need of an update?

A. Oh yes. And my advice is: Go back to Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's old credo, where nobody owes us a living. After I had just taken over as the Housing Board's chairman in 2000, an astute academic asked me: 'Tong Dow, what's your greatest problem at HDB?' Then he diagnosed it himself: 'Initially, you gave peanuts to monkeys so they would dance to your tune. Now you've given them so much by way of peanuts that the monkey has become a gorilla and you have to dance to its tune. That's your greatest problem.' Our people have become over-fed and today's economic realities mean we have to put them on a crash diet. We cannot starve them because there will be a political explosion. So the art of government today is to wean everyone off the dispensable items. We should just concentrate on helping the poorest 5 to 10 per cent of the population, instead of handing out a general largesse. Forget about asset enhancement, Singapore shares and utility rebates. You're dancing to the tune of the gorilla. I don't understand the urgency of raising the Goods and Services Tax. Why tax the lower-income, then return it to them in an aid package? It demeans human dignity and creates a growing supplicant class who habitually hold out their palms. Despite the fact that we say we are not a welfare state, we act like one of the most 'welfarish' states in the world. We should appeal instead to people's sense of pride and self-reliance. I think political courage is needed here. And my instinct is that the Singaporean will respect you for that.

Q. So what should this new compact consist of?

A. It should go back to what was originally promised: 'That you shall be given the best education, whether it be academic or vocational, according to your maximum potential.'

And there will be no judgment whether an engineer is better than a doctor or a chef.

My late mother was a great woman. Although illiterate, she single-handedly brought up four boys and a girl. She used to say in Hainanese: 'If you have one talent which you excel in, you will never starve.' I think the best legacy to leave is education and equal opportunity for all. When the Hainanese community came to Singapore, they were the latest arrivals and the smallest in number. So they had no choice but to become humble houseboys, waiters and cooks. But they always wanted their sons to have a better life than themselves. The great thing about Singapore was that we could get an education, which gave us mobility, despite coming from the poorest families. Today, the Hainanese, as a dialect group, form proportionately the highest number of professionals in Singapore.

Q. You say focus on education. What is top of your wishlist for re-making Singapore's education system?

A. Each year, the PSLE creams off all the top boys and girls and dispatches them to only two schools, Raffles Institution and Raffles Girls' School. However good these schools are, the problem is you are educating your elite in only two institutions, with only two sets of mentors, and casting them in more or less the same mould. It worries me that Singapore is only about 'one brand' because you never know what challenges lie ahead and where they will come from. I think we should spread out our best and brightest to at least a dozen schools.

Q. You advocate a more inclusive mindset all around?

A. Yes, intellectually, everyone has to accept that the country of Singapore is larger than the PAP. But even larger than the country of Singapore, which is limited by size and population, is the nation of Singapore, which includes a diaspora. My view is that we should have a more inclusive approach to nation-building. We have started the Majulah Connection, an international network where every Singaporean - whether he is a citizen or not, so long as he feels for Singapore - is included as part of our diaspora. Similarly, we should include foreigners who have worked and thrived here as friends of Singapore. That's the only way to survive. Otherwise, its just four million people on a little red dot of 600 sq km. If you exclude people, you become smaller and smaller, and in the end, you'll disappear.

Q. What is the kind of Singapore you hope your grandchildren will inherit?

A. Let's look at Sparta and Athens, two city states in Greek history. Singapore is like Sparta, where the top students are taken away from their parents as children and educated. Cohort by cohort, they each select their own leadership, ultimately electing their own Philosopher King. When I first read Plato's Republic, I was totally dazzled by the great logic of this organisational model where the best selects the best. But when I reached the end of the book, it dawned on me that though the starting point was meritocracy, the end result was dictatorship and elitism. In the end, that was how Sparta crumbled. Yet, Athens, a city of philosophers known for its different schools of thought, survived. What does this tell us about out-of-bounds markers? So SM Lee has to think very hard what legacy he wants to leave for Singapore and the type of society he wants to leave behind. Is it to be a Sparta, a well-organised martial society, but in the end, very brittle; or an untidy Athens which survived because of its diversity of thinking? Personally, I believe that Singaporeans are not so kuai (Hokkien for obedient) as to become a Sparta. This is our saving grace. As a young senior citizen, I very much hope that Singapore will survive for a long time, but as an Athens. It is more interesting and worth living and dying for.

Stop dancing to the tune of the gorilla - Interview with EDB Society President, Mr Ngiam Tong Dow
by Susan Long Part Two of the much-talked-about ...
Oct 12 2003

Singapore 'bigger than PAP' - Interview with EDB Society President, Mr. Ngiam Tong Dow
S'pore 'bigger than PAP'. By Susan Long. T ...
Oct 5 2003

About Mr Ngiam Tong Dow : -

1959: Obtained First class honours in economics from University of Malaya.

1959: Joined Administrative Service. Postings to the former Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Finance Ministry, and the Economic Development Board.

1964: Topped his Master's in Public Administration programme at Harvard University.

1970: Became the youngest-ever Permanent Secretary at age 33 at the Ministry of Communications. Subsequent postings as Perm Sec in the Ministries of Finance, Trade & Industry, National Development, and the Prime Minister's Office.

1990: Appointed chairman of Development Bank Of Singapore. Later also of the Central Provident Fund Board and HDB.

1999: Retired from the civil service as Permanent Secretary (Finance), a post he held for 13 years.

2003: Named chairman of HDB Corp. Currently also a director of Yeo Hiap Seng Limited, United Overseas Bank and Singapore Press Holdings.

Democracy In Singapore Part One

Contains interviews with JB Jeyaretnam, James Gomez, Catherine Lim to name a few. Really worth a listen.

From SBS Radio15.5.2006 17:23:39

The tourist promotion for Singapore boasts that the island state is unique -- "Uniquely Singaporean".
This is also how many describe the country's democracy and its media.

The People Action Party of Singapore -- known as the PAP -- has ruled the country for 47 years.

And, following the recent election, it continues to hold a firm grip.

The PAP controls 82 out of the 84 seats in parliament.

In the courts, opposition candidates from the Singapore Democracy Party are fighting defamation suits filed by the ruling party. And a candidate from the Workers Party is facing a criminal intimidation charge from the government electoral commission.

As Rebecca Henschke reports, this continues a long-held policy of the PAP -- to silence its critics through the courts.

Audio MP3

SOURCE: World View

Singapore

Brave New World

Link.

"But so far, the PAP's Brave New World, in which a pampered and politics-shy public is led by strict but benevolent leaders, seems to make Singaporeans pretty happy." Finally, the barbed reference to Huxley's A Brave New World. I thought it would never come as I read The Economist's typically enjoyable features on politics."

Police Warning for James Gomez

By John Burton in Singapore
Published: May 15 2006 03:00 Last updated: May 15 2006 03:00

A Singapore opposition politician whose activities became the focus of the city state's recent election campaign has been let off with a warning after being questioned by police.

James Gomez was criticised by the long-ruling People's Action party in the run-up to the May 6 polls for allegedly trying to discredit the government after he wrongly claimed that election officials had mislaid one of his registration forms, which could have disqualified him as a candidate.

The incident threatened to undermine the Workers' party, the strongest opposition group, with party leaders also called in for questioning last week.

Mr Gomez apologised after security cameras showed he had failed to submit the disputed form. But the episode dominated election reporting in the state-guided media in what critics said was an attempt to portray the opposition in an unflattering light.

Post-election analysis by the local media concluded that the government's focus on Mr Gomez as an election issue contributed to a backlash against the PAP, whose voter support fell to 67 per cent from 75 per cent in the previous 2001 election. The PAP won 82 of the 84 parliamentary seats under the country's first-past-the-post system.

The Workers' party kept its single parliamentary seat and also picked up a special non-voting seat under election rules that award it to the best-performing opposition party.

Singapore police said they had decided to give Mr Gomez a warning for using "threatening words towards a public servant" instead of formally charging him, which carried penalties of up to a year in jail and a fine of S$5,000 (US$3,200, €2,475, £1,692).

The complaint against Mr Gomez, who had been barred from leaving the country, was filed by Singapore's election department, which comes under the prime minister's office.

Lee Kuan Yew, independent Singapore's first leader and father of the current prime minister, suggested that the case could have led to other Workers' party officials being implicated, including Low Thia Khiang, the party's sole MP, and Sylvia Lim, the party chairman who will take up the special non-voting seat. Mr Lee repeated allegations he made during the campaign that Mr Gomez was a "liar" and dared him to file a defamation suit.

Workers' party officials said they would ignore comments by Mr Lee, who has previously filed defamation suits against other opposition leaders.

Singapore

Bloggers persist as Mediacorp bullshits

The extract below is from Singapore Election Watch and is from an article related to its recent appearance on CNA. And as you can guess SEW isn't one bit happy. From images removed or carefully selected to titles of posts mysteriously ommitted...

It comes at no surprise that Singapore Election Watch endured its 3-minutes of misrepresentation on CNA yesterday. Once again, Mediacorp showed Singaporeans why they were deserving of the 140th spot as perscribed by Reporters without Borders, and it reaffirmed the reasons why sites like Singapore Election Watch continue to exist. Was Ms. Farah Abdul Rahim seriously wanting to crack this so-called mind-boggling phenomenon called, 'citizen journalism' or was Mediacorp just running out of ideas once again? It couldn't be the first because if she and all other analysts were truly interested in this, they would have asked to interview the very 'citizen journalists' in the first place! Singapore Election Watch did not receive any such request. What Mediacorp had done is what they always do: bullshit! Notice how Ms. Rahim ended the clip with, "the election may be over, but observers say, it's still too early to asses the impact of the internet on the election." Everyone knows that the major upsurge in the popularity of the opposition parties was correlated with the increasing number of websites dedicated to them!

The true reality is this: Singapore Election Watch doesn't consider itself to be a 'journalist'. The catch-phrase of the month (i.e. citizens journalism) is just another meaningless facade, Mediacorp is willing to hide behind. Indeed, we're citizens, but to call it 'journalism' is to reaffirm Mediacorp's lack of understanding of the term 'journalism', and thererfore, their own objectives as a 'news' outlet. Blogging is not a 'phenomena'; it's a protest against the bullshit Mediacorp throws at Singaporeans.

Singapore Election Watch is not on a propaganda rampage against Mediacorp. We're merely trying to ask the following questions:

Why didn't they request to interview the subjects of their news broadcast?
Why do they continue to dodge our calls for apologies for misrepresenting, and worse, stealing our ideas?
Why did they manipulate the screenshots of Singapore Election Watch?
Why didn't they mention the petition In support of James Gomez and the Workers' Party?
When will they acknowledge their 140th position in the world, and their third world media coverage?
Just look at these!

1. Deleted headings (i.e. Lee Hsien Loong's Territory up for Grabs).
Focused on the Picture of Mr. Lee and the PAP logo.



To continue reading...

Singapore

Look...

Look closer. Do you see what I see..? An illegal gathering. Of whiteshirts. On a bus.

The PAP team finally came today to make people grovel at their almighty power thank the residents. I noticed that no one was waving back. Warning sign to take note of?

They went to the market/hawker side to give flowers for Mother's day. How sweet. I wonder how much all those flowers cost and if it can be better used on other matters like upgrading for Hougang and Potong Pasir.

- Spotted at Scribes in the Beat.

I like the way this picture symbolises our nation. You have the upper class sitting comfortably in the aircon, then there's the middle-class sitting under some shade, then there's the lower working class standing in the blistering sun on flower-giving duty...And then there's LKY still trying to drive the bus.

Singapore

Singapore - US Department of State

Singapore

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005
Released by the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor
March 8, 2006

Singapore is a parliamentary republic in which politics is dominated overwhelmingly by the People's Action Party (PAP), which has been in power since 1959. The population was approximately 4.2 million, with foreign workers accounting for nearly one‑seventh of the total. Opposition parties exist, and parliamentary elections take place at regular, constitutionally mandated intervals (most recently in November 2001); however, the PAP holds 82 of 84 elected parliamentary seats and all ministerial positions. The government maintained effective control over all security activities.

The government generally respected the human rights of its citizens; however, there were significant problems in some areas. The government has broad powers to limit citizens' rights and to handicap political opposition, which it used in practice. Caning was an allowable punishment for numerous offenses. The following human rights problems were reported:

- preventive detention
- executive influence over the judiciary
- infringement of citizens' privacy rights
- restriction of speech and press freedom, and the practice of self-censorship by journalists
- restriction of freedom of assembly and freedom of association
- some restriction on freedom of religion
- some trafficking in persons

to continue reading...

Singapore

Letters to ST

Change mindset about role of opposition MPs. They're not trouble-makers

I refer to a statement made by Tampines GRC MP Miss Irene Ng at a rally in the recent elections in which she said an opposition MP created trouble and questioned 'in Parliament, what does the opposition do for you?'

I was shocked at the generalisations about the opposition from a PAP MP. Nevertheless, what Miss Ng said may reflect what many Singaporeans deem the opposition to be.

Being used to the capable rule of PAP-only governments since independence, we tend to think that the PAP MPs are the only ones who can contribute to Singapore's development and we sometimes forget the true role of the opposition.

It has become a mindset that the opposition MPs are merely trouble-makers and they cannot contribute meaninfully to the debates in Parliament.

While the opposition isn't perfect, nor is the government. That is why we need representatives from both sides to reflect the diverse views of our heterogenous society.

To say that the opposition is 'out to make trouble' and that it cannot contribute to politics undermines the multiple-party democratic system that we have.

If they are 'out to make trouble' and do not make any contributions, there is no reason for opposition MPs such as Mr Chiam See Tong and Mr Low Thia Khiang to be re-elected for several terms. Trust the ability of the voters to be discerning.

In 1991, opposition candidate Cheo Chai Chen triumphed in Nee Soon Central but because he did not contribute substantially in Parliament, he was defeated in 1997 by the PAP's Mr Ong Ah Heng.

Yet the Singapore Democratic Alliance and Workers' Party chiefs were re-elected with improved majorities in the recent general election. This shows that the opposition MPs too can be credible and they can contribute in politics.

To be a mature society, we Singaporeans should not view the opposition as trouble-makers but instead see them as equally credible representatives of the people who serve as a check-and-balance for the government in Parliament.

If we continue to have the wrong mindset about the opposition, we may stifle what may truly be best for our society.

I hope Miss Ng realises that her views on the opposition would not hold if we are to have a First World government or parliament, and that over the next few years the opposition MPs will further prove themselves to be a credible source of representation for Singapore.

Michael Wee Hong Shen

It is funny that good letters like this, this and this do not make it to the print version, but crap like this and this always do. Maybe the ST is more sneaky than we thought.

Singapore

Bridge saga makes all poorer

What do sand, airspace and a bridge have in common:

By Chandra Muzaffar

AMBASSADOR-AT-LARGE Tan Sri Ahmad Fuzi Abdul Razak has provided a rational explanation on why the Malaysian government decided not to build "the bridge" to replace the Johor Causeway.
The first three options that he outlined would have been detrimental to our national interest. The first option - acceding to Singapore's request for a lifting of the 1997 ban on the export of sand to Singapore and allowing the Singapore military access to Malaysian airspace as trade-offs for the building of a full straight bridge - would have been perceived by a lot of Malaysians as an affront to our national sovereignty. The second option - building a half bridge to join the Singapore part of the Causeway - would have embroiled us in contentious legal wrangles, sapping our financial resources. The third option - building a half bridge in the hope that eventually it can be linked to a full bridge - would have placed us at Singapore's mercy and subjected the nation to ridicule.

The fourth option - not to build the bridge at all - was perhaps the only way out of a difficult situation. By exercising this option, however, Malaysia has had to pay a heavy price. The Mahathir administration had already constructed a RM1.2 billion Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) complex without obtaining a firm, formal agreement from its Singapore counterpart on the building of the bridge. It had also awarded the contract for the bridge to a developer who will now have to be compensated - to the tune of RM100 million. It was neither responsible nor intelligent to make decisions of this sort which have become an "albatross around the neck" of the present government.

The Singapore government also "shot itself in the foot" by insisting upon sand and airspace as the trade-offs for its consent on the bridge. Because of this episode, no Malaysian government in the foreseeable future will even be able to open a discussion with the Singapore government on the question of allowing the Singapore Air Force access to Malaysian airspace. It has merely reinforced the suspicion that pervades a significant segment of the Malaysian populace about the real intentions of the Singapore government which is perceived as a close security ally of both Washington and Tel Aviv. The Singapore government could have used the bridge proposal from the Malaysian government to improve its image among the Malaysian people. True, the bridge would have benefited Malaysia - specifically Southern Johor - more than Singapore but it would have also further enhanced the cross border flow of people and goods to the advantage of the latter. Besides, the water flow in the Johor Strait that the bridge would have facilitated, and the return of marine life, would have benefited both neighbours. More than anything else, a bridge would have been a wonderful symbol of the importance we accord to friendship and understanding between our two peoples.

But when one is obsessed with reaping the most from every situation, when one's kiasu mentality has instilled in one a morbid fear of losing out, how can we expect a magnanimous gesture of goodwill from our dear neighbour?

Dr Chandra Muzaffar is the president of the International Movement for a Just World (Just).

- via Singapore Window

Singapore

Who is Irene Ng Kidding?

It's a well known fact by now that Tampines MP Irene Ng, came under intense fire for labelling Opposition MPs as 'troublemakers'. The secretary-general of the Workers' Party and MP for Hougang, Low Thia Khiang, took offence to Irene Ng's comments and said that if she could not provide any evidence that he had been a 'troublemaker', then she should apologise for her remarks. She subsequently issued a vague clarification which did not amount to an apology, indicating that she was 'amused' by Mr Low's response. There was a letter in the Straits Times criticising Irene Ng, to which she has responded:

May 13, 2006

All MPs get a hearing in Parliament.

I REFER to the letter, 'Don't all MPs deserve to be listened to carefully?' (ST, May 11), by Mr Yip Tai Ann which highlighted one quote of my rally speech in Tampines. Towards the end of that speech, which dwelt mainly on the opposition's empty promises to Tampines residents, I told voters that I understood their anxieties on issues such as the cost of living. I reassured them that PAP MPs like myself would listen to their views and speak up for them. More importantly, we would do our best to solve their problems. They do not need to vote in an opposition just to speak up for them.

It was in this context that I added that ministers would listen more carefully to a PAP MP accurately reflecting ground issues and suggesting practical solutions than to an opposition MP out to score political points. Mr Yip need not be shocked at this. Of course, everyone - PAP and the opposition - is heard in Parliament. That is not the issue. The issue is effectiveness in solving people's problems and addressing their concerns. Besides parliamentary sittings, PAP MPs form the government parliamentary committees which scrutinise government policies and which engage ministers on a continuous basis. Ministers also consult PAP MPs on policies during regular party-caucus meetings. Individually, we also raise the specific problems of our constituents with ministers, to ensure that the problems are looked into and addressed. My own experience has been a positive one. As elected PAP MPs, we have a duty to represent all our constituents. Without their support, we would not form the Government. So elected, the Government has a duty to govern in the best interest of Singaporeans.

But let us be clear on this: The ultimate aim of an opposition party is to replace the governing party, and, indeed, this was spelt out clearly in the Workers' Party's manifesto. The opposition seeks to check and oppose the Government's policies and actions in a bid to eventually convince the electorate that it should unseat the ruling party. This is what opposition politics is all about, and this is not something new or peculiar to Singapore. On the other hand, as PAP MPs, we will continue to speak up boldly on behalf of our residents, address their needs and help refine government policies so as to achieve a better life and a better future for all Singaporeans.

Irene Ng (Miss)
Member of Parliament-elect

Irene Ng claimed during her rally speech that PAP Ministers were more willing to listen to PAP MPs, as opposed to Opposition MPs. This claim was reasserted in her letter above.

However, is this really true? There is evidence that Irene Ng herself is not quite being listened to:

I have listened to the speeches made yesterday and today on my computer URL. I think we have made progress. But unlike Ms Irene Ng's idealistic approach that we should create a national consciousness and forget our ethnic origins and be Singaporeans, I think this will take us a few more generations. If you take a vote in this Chamber, never mind about going out to the constituencies, and say, "Do you agree with what Irene Ng said?", I am pretty certain that the overwhelming majority will say, "Let's stick to where we are."Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew in Parliament, 25 Nov 2004

It is the humble opinion of this writer that Miss Ng would do well to heed the advice of a wise man who once said that "it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt.

CNA Broadcast: Bloggers during elections

This is basically the broadcasted report of the CNA article posted yesterday regarding bloggers during the elections. Notice once again how we are rudely excluded. Maybe 'Singabloodypore' was deemed too profane for the conservative majority. Or maybe if you freeze-frame quick enough, you will see us there. I don't really care. At least what we don't do is monopolise the media and then pat ourselves on the back and bask in narcissistic self-glory of what a great job we've done at it.

Singapore

Teaching Political Theory in Beijing

First spotted on AsiaPundit and then Dissent Magazine. Daniel seems to be arguing that Mainland China offers greater academic freedom than Singapore. I believe that Warwick University might agree.


By Daniel A. Bell
Spring 2006

Few Western academics would aspire to teach political theory in an authoritarian setting. Surely the free, uninhibited flow of discussion is crucial to our enterprise. When I tell my Western friends that I gave up a tenured, high-paying job in relatively free Hong Kong for a contractual post at Tsinghua University in Beijing, they think I’ve gone off my rocker. I explain that it’s a unique opportunity for me: it’s the first time Tsinghua has hired a foreigner in the humanities since the revolution; Tsinghua trains much of China’s political elite, and I might be able to make a difference by teaching that elite; the students are talented, curious, hardworking, and it’s a pleasure to engage with them; the political future of China is wide open, and I’ll be well placed to observe the changes when they happen. Still, I do not deny that teaching political theory in China has been challenging. This has to do partly with political constraints. But it’s not all about politics. Even if China became a Western-style liberal democracy overnight, there would still be cultural obstacles to deal with. In this essay, I will discuss some of these political and cultural challenges.


Political Constraints
The willingness to put up with political constraints depends partly upon one’s history. In my case, I had taught at the National University of Singapore in the early 1990s. There, the head of the department was a member of the ruling People’s Action Party. He was soon replaced by another head, who asked to see my reading lists and informed me that I should teach more communitarianism (the subject of my doctoral thesis) and less John Stuart Mill. Naturally, this made me want to do the opposite. Strange people would show up in my classroom when I spoke about “politically sensitive” topics, such as Karl Marx’s thought. Students would clam up when I used examples from local politics to illustrate arguments. It came as no surprise when my contract was not renewed.

In comparison, China is a paradise of academic freedom. Among colleagues, anything goes (in Singapore, most local colleagues were very guarded when dealing with foreigners). Academic publications are surprisingly free: there aren’t any personal attacks on leaders or open calls for multiparty rule, but particular policies, such as the household registry system, which limits internal mobility, are subject to severe criticism. In 2004, state television, for the first time in history, broadcast the U.S. presidential elections live, without any obvious political slant. (I suspect that the turmoil surrounding the 2000 U.S. presidential elections, along with the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, discredited U.S.-style democracy among many Chinese, and the government has less to fear from the model.) More surprisingly, perhaps, I was not given any explicit (or implicit, as far as I could tell) guidance regarding what I could teach at Tsinghua. My course proposals have been approved as submitted.

To continue reading
Daniel A. Bell’s most recent book is Beyond Liberal Democracy: Political Thinking for an East Asian Context (forthcoming, Princeton University Press, 2006). He can be reached at daniel.a.bell@gmail.com.

Singapore

Returning Officer names WP Chairman Sylvia Lim as Non-Constituency MP

SINGAPORE: The Returning Officer for the recent General Election, Mr Tan Boon Huat has declared Workers' Party Chairman, Sylvia Lim as the candidate elected to be the Non-Constituency MP or NCMP.

The declaration was made in a Government Gazette announcement on Friday.

Under the Parliamentary Elections Act, the offer of the post of NCMP would be extended to the team which polled the highest percentage of votes among the unsuccessful opposition candidates.

In this case, the WP team obtained the highest percentage of nearly 44 percent in the Aljunied GRC contest.

The Workers' Party had announced on Tuesday (9 May) that it is naming Ms Lim for the post.

This is the third time the WP is taking up the NCMP post, the last being former Secretary General, Mr JB Jeyatertnam and Dr Lee Siew Choh from the party. - CNA /dt

Channelnewsasia.com

As sad as it is that WP is once again relegated the NCMP seat, I am glad that it is a woman, for a change. Hopefully by next election, she will become a MP.

MM Lee: James Gomez is still liar, dishonest despite stern warning

Several thousand miles away, and still cursing:

CHINA : Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew says the attorney-general's decision not to prosecute Workers' Party member James Gomez does not make him less of a liar or less dishonest.

In a statement released from China, where he is currently on a visit, Mr Lee reiterated what he had called Mr Gomez earlier.

The Minister Mentor had said that Mr Gomez was a liar and dishonest and that Workers' Party chairman Sylvia Lim and the party secretary-general Low Thia Khiang did not act honourably by shielding him.

Mr Lee added that if Mr Gomez claims he is not a liar nor dishonest, he can go to court to clear his name.

Earlier on Friday, Mr Gomez had been let off with a stern warning for threatening an Elections Department officer, ending a three week long saga.

Investigations by police started after a complaint by the Elections Department against Mr Gomez on May 6.

Police said that after reviewing the evidence, the Public Prosecutor was satisfied that Mr Gomez had used threatening words towards a public servant.

He could have been fined up to $5,000 or jailed up to one year.

But police decided it would let Mr Gomez go with a warning instead, as he had been cooperative and had not committed any previous criminal offences.

The saga revolved around Mr Gomez's claim that he had applied for a minority candidate certificate at the Elections Department before the May 6 General Election.

Security camera footage from the Elections Department later showed that he did not submit the application form but instead put it into his bag.

Mr Gomez subsequently admitted he did not hand in the form and apologised, saying he was distracted.

But People's Action Party leaders found his apology inadequate and accused him of lying and trying to discredit the Elections Department.

"It is in the AG's authority to exercise his discretion, but his decision not to prosecute does not, in any way, make James Gomez less of a liar or less dishonest. I reiterate what I have called him, a liar and dishonest, and that Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Low Thia Khiang did not act honourably by shielding him. If Gomez claims he is not a liar nor dishonest, he can go to court to clear his name," said Mr Lee in his statement.

Channelnewsasia

A first-time offender should be no excuse for minimalising the severity of a crime. Nor is a simple 'warning' warranted when there is no crime to begin with. It is the exact same tactic used earlier on CSJ when he tried to leave the country. At least he had the courage to stand up for himself and challenge the police to charge him. Acceptance of such warnings is wrongful confession to the crime itself.

I am ashamed at how the supposed 'father' of Singapore has handled this issue. I am ashamed at his lack of compassion. I am ashamed that this is whom Singaporeans are suppose to look up to. I am ashamed that he cannot accept an apology, let go of a grudge, and yet allow his son to deal out an apology with automatic expectation of public acceptance. Above all, I am ashamed all this is over a piece of paper.

Singapore

The Deadly Embrace of Politics

A brief extract from Yawning Bread concerning the case being held in Canada and the 'independence' of the Singaporean judiciary which has been circulating since January 15, 2006.

You would not know it from the Straits Times' story headlined "Law Ministry rejects Canadian firm's charges of 'biased judiciary' " (10 May 2006), but a good part of Singapore's economic future is riding on the dry legal arguments in a case being heard in Toronto, Canada.

That would be some case, wouldn't it?

What's even more interesting is that it is actually a private commercial dispute between 2 companies -- one Singaporean and the other Canadian -- yet the case has now expanded to the broader question of whether the Singapore judiciary is of first world standard.

The Singapore firm, Oakwell Engineering Ltd, won its case against the Canadian, Enernorth Industries Inc in previous rounds in Singapore. However, to enforce its claim of the court award, Oakwell had to go to the Canadian courts, since Enernorth's assets are primarily in that country.

In the first Canadian hearing, the Ontario Superior Court, under Justice Gerald Day, ruled that Oakwell could seize the assets of Enernorth, pursuant to a judgment by the Singapore Court of Appeal.

However, this has now been appealed to the Court of Appeal for Ontario, Enernorth's argument being that the Canadian judiciary cannot enforce an order coming from a state that does not have Canadian standards of justice. The Court of Appeal thus has to decide whether Singapore's judiciary meets Canadian standards of impartiality.

If it rules in favour of Enernorth, then an earth-shaking precedent will be set. The ruling can be cited by other courts in the United States, UK, Australia, etc, to refuse to recognise and enforce judgments made by Singapore courts. Should that happen, our dream of marketing legal services, including arbitration and trial, as one more plank of the new "knowledge and services economy", will be impaired. Why would foreign companies rely on Singapore lawyers and our judicial processes when the results are not recognised elsewhere?

Moreover, an adverse ruling would also cast doubt on all other commercial judgments rendered in Singapore, which may impact on other companies' perception of how safe their investments are from political bias.


continue reading.
Why did the Straits Times break the story only now?

Singapore

PAP MP accused of unprofessional legal conduct while he was MP

Interesting questions from Yawning Bread.

Another case that puts our domestic media in very bad light is that of lawyer Ahmad Khalis Abdul Ghani. It was reported on 11 May 2006 that he is scheduled to appear before a Court of Three Judges over allegations of unprofessional conduct.

He has been accused of giving "false assurances", a role in "breach of trust" and "suppressing relevant evidence", according to the Straits Times. All this was in relation to his client's family dispute about the ownership of a piece of property.

Ahmad Khalis was the People's Action Party (PAP) Member of Parliament for Hong Kah. He first entered Parliament in 2001, but when the 2006 elections approached, it was announced that he would "retire" due to "work commitments".

It is very unusual for PAP MPs to serve just one term, but typically, our media didn't investigate. Now it's revealed that a complaint against him had been lodged with the Law Society in April 2003 and a hearing was conducted in October 2004, which "culminated in the recent decision to bring the former MP to the High Court".

The Straits Times didn't say when that decision was reached.

It's extremely suspicious. One finds it very hard to believe that nobody delayed the news until the elections were over. Did the newspaper know about it and not report it?

If the newspaper didn't know, did the Law Society hold back on announcing its decision?

Did the PAP know that Ahmad Khalis was under a cloud when it said that he wasn't standing for reelection because of "work commitments"? Does the PAP understand the expression "work commitments" to include facing charges?

Singapore

Endgame

In Chess, the endgame can be seen as mop-up action. The stage where you finish off the weakest and yet most significant pieces. The endgame in Go is similar - players move to clarify which formations are alive and dead.

Whiteshirt endgame

James Gomez. Frankly if I were the Whiteshirts, this would be exactly what I'd do anyway.

Fact: Authority and power inspire obedience and confidence
Fact: Singaporeans scored high in authority and tradition in the last World Values Survey
Fact: It will take about 25 years for this country to have a sufficient liberal electorate to make this strategy cost too much for the Whiteshirts.

In addition, it's also a gambit.
WP central committee offer no public comments about Gomez, show no support, no effort to work public opinion to frame Gomez as innocent: WP is discredited in the eyes of liberal voters.

WP central committee back Gomez up to the hilt: WP is discredited in the eyes of conservative voters, who will see them as the next SDP.

How WP responds will determine if it can keep the gains it made in the public mind last week.

Since the Public Prosecutor has chosen not to prosecute James Gomez, he has not been found guilty of criminal intimidation by the courts. The opposition still has to frame this as their victory, though. And that concludes the Whiteshirt endgame.

Opposition endgame

MPs Chiam See Tong (SDA-Potong Pasir) and Low Thia Khiang (WP-Hougang) have SM Goh Chok Tong (PAP-Marine Parade) in their crosshairs. Their strategy is simply

Where is the money, Mr Goh?

The mistake Goh made was to announce the exact figure of the upgrading funds set aside for Potong Pasir and Hougang - in the almost 12 years of using the upgrading carrot-and-stick (in Chua Mui Hoong's own words), the Whiteshirts have never specified any monetary value of their sweeteners.

Very well, you have set aside 180 million dollars. Or so you claim. In which account books is the money budgetted under? Who will pay the 180 million dollars? How much of it will actually come from the residents of Potong Pasir and Hougang? What happens to the money now? Where does it go to? And so on.

Bury the Whiteshirts under accountability of funds. But Mr Goh, while being weak, isn't a significant piece in the Whiteshirt machinery.

Focus on Khaw Boon Wan (non-NKF)

In a little-known CNA report, Minister Khaw announced that the Government has shortlisted several locations for retirement villages in Batam and Johore Bahru. That's right, and at least one will be built. The opposition needs to question Minister Khaw to reveal more details on this.

Khaw says that in the past, "the Singapore market was... too small for retirement villages to be commercially viable". That overseas retirement villages are now viable indicates that Singapore's cost of living has become unaffordable for the old, that Singapore becomes unlivable for retirees. It also means that the CPF system has failed: despite a high rate of enforced savings, retirees still cannot survive. It also means that the rate of poverty in the old will rise, and the Whiteshirts have no real solution. It also means abalone porridge was a hypocritical election ploy. The opposition needs to frame the retirement village as a failure of social security and a cost of living issue.

As Minister Khaw makes a big deal out of being a devout Buddhist who cannot lie, who will refuse to answer questions if he feels he'll make a lie, further frame the issue: Is the retirement village idea not an immoral thing - both in itself, and the implication that social security in Singapore has fallen apart?

The man who said "If you do wrong things, tell lies, defame people, create trouble, incite hatred...then I think you have wasted your life and I worry about your afterlife" and "In my religion, one of the biggest sins is to tell lies. The next life, you'll become a cockroach or something" needs to be reminded that ill-treating the old and failing to care for the old is even more immoral.

The opposition should get the message out before the first session of Parliament begins. The silver lining in SDP losing the Sembawang contest is this: it's more embarrassing and damaging for the Whiteshirts to be forced to reshuffle Mr Khaw out of his Ministry.

Citizen endgame

3rd May 06 - Lunchtime Election Rally

"Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?"

--- Minilee

Thanks to some creative editing by Chua Mui Hoong in the Straits Times, Minilee wasn't completely damaged by his fix them and buy votes speech. We need to keep this issue in play as much as Minilee and the Straits Times want to bury it.

100 letters to the Straits Times and Today forum pages will remind them of their journalistic failure to scrutinise Minilee's speech. They could include most of the following points:

1. We thank Minilee for clarifying his use of "fix" during the lunchtime election rally of 3 May.
2. However, we still require him to make further clarifications in the clearest language as possible.
3. Most importantly, we as Singaporean citizens look forward to hearing an explanation for what our PM meant when he talked about buying supporters votes.
4. Not only must Singapore have no climate of fear, Singapore must be seen to have no climate of fear. Use of sharp and violent language like fixing people, buying votes fosters impressions of a climate of fear.

(Of course, if the opposition were strong enough, I'd recommend Minilee as their joint endgame target, along with Khaw)

Blogger endgame

A relevant ministry will examine the effect of the internet on the election. Bloggers have two viable targets and two strategies that can be carried out simultaneously.

Moral and international right to comment freely on elections

From Comment 25 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights,

Voters should be able to form opinions independently, free of violence or threat of violence, compulsion, inducement or manipulative interference of any kind.

In order to ensure the full enjoyment of rights protected by article 25, the free communication of information and ideas about public and political issues between citizens, candidates and elected representatives is essential. This implies a free press and other media able to comment on public issues without censorship or restraint and to inform public opinion. It requires the full enjoyment and respect for the rights guaranteed in articles 19, 21 and 22 of the Covenant, including freedom to engage in political activity individually or through political parties and other organizations, freedom to debate public affairs, to hold peaceful demonstrations and meetings, to criticize and oppose, to publish political material, to campaign for election and to advertise political ideas.

The blogosphere right now needs to frame the upcoming debate from one about the dangers of irresponsible blogging to one about the right to comment and take part in elections, to form opinions and discuss issues with each other freely.

Fix the media, don't fix bloggers

The reputation of SPH and Mediacorp has taken a beating from foreign press reports of their biases in reporting this election. Day after day, from nomination day to the day before polling, the main newspapers and television stations showed endless reports of Whiteshirt campaign, written and read in the highest and most congratulatory language, while giving opposition candidates next to zero airtime.

Where were the pictures of the Workers Party rallies?
Why did Chua Mui Hoong change Minilee's speech to "counter my opponents" instead of the actual "fix" and "buy" line?
Why were the teams from prize-winning, world-class Mediacorp unable to track down opposition politicians for their victory speeches, some of which are podcast anyway by bloggers?

1. The mainstream media is biased
2. The mainstream media is incompetent
3. The election coverage was so awful that bloggers provided NEWS that Singaporeans kept going online to get.

We bloggers aren't political, we aren't making crazy, unverifiable, outrageous statements about the election campaign. We offered our comments and analyses and from the looks of it, countless citizens wanted to hear what we wanted to say.

The message bloggers need to make loud and clear to the "relevant ministry" and the MDA is this": Fix your mainstream media. Don't fix us.

Bloggers should remember that for months, SPH and Mediacorp were hatchet men, painting bloggers as dangerous, irrelevant, or irresponsible. Spare them no quarters this time.

Singapore

WP's Gomez let off with stern warning in run-in with Elections Dept

Sign the Petition!

Workers' Party member James Gomez has been let off with a stern warning for threatening an Elections Department officer.

Police said that after reviewing the evidence, the Public Prosecutor was satisfied that Mr Gomez had committed the offence of using threatening words towards a public servant.

It said that statements given by Mr Gomez contained several serious inconsistencies, which together with statements of other parties, put into question the real truth.

However, police considered the circumstances of the case, including Mr Gomez's willingness to cooperate with the Police, and the absence of any previous criminal records.

The Public Prosecutor decided that a stern warning be given to Mr Gomez instead.

The offence would have been punishable with a fine of up to $5,000, or a jail term of up to one year.

The Elections Department had lodged a police report last week (6 May) against Mr Gomez who had claimed he had filed an application for a minority certificate when in fact he had not.

Mr Gomez had warned an officer of "consequences" when the officer could not find any application of his for a certificate. - CNA/ir

So basically we can hold anyone for a few days, never actually charge them with any violation, release them and claim that they are guilty of the alleged offence without ever charging them or taking them to court for the alleged offence.

Police Harassment! over the word 'consequences'!

Get MM Lee in for calling Gomez a 'liar', get Mini-Lee in for 'fixing' oppositon MPs.

Singapore

Sign the Petition!

This is outrageous. Calling Gomez up 3 times for interrogation with each session lasting 3 to 5 hours over such a small matter is presposterous! Would like to call upon the police force to channel more efforts to investigate other criminal offences that requires more attention rather than spending so much time on the Gomez fiasco. Is not productive and a sheer waste of taxpayers money! The PAP ought to feel ashamed of themselves. Using the police as a tool to satisfy their own agenda.

Blog pages on Singapore's election up 10-fold during campaigning

By Farah Abdul Rahim, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : During the nine-day election campaign, the number of blog articles on the subject grew nearly 10-fold compared to before Nomination Day, showing the online community's interest in Singapore's general election.

Observers have hailed this as the first election in which the Internet had an impact on Singapore's political culture.

With Singapore being one of the most plugged-in and Internet-savvy countries in the world, it was no surprise that the election was closely watched and discussed online.

One indication was that before Parliament was dissolved, the number of blog articles on the election numbered about 20 a day.

This number doubled to more than 40 after Parliament was dissolved in the run-up to Nomination Day, and it averaged over 190 during the nine-day election campaign.

The interest has not waned even after the results, with 195 blog articles posted daily since Polling Day.

Said Goh Kheng Wee, managing director of NexLabs, "It is a very interesting trend. I think it's the first time citizen journalism is really taking its form in the Singapore election. Of course in the last election in 2001, blogging did not exist. Citizen journalism -- probably the best expression is in blogs and it was very prevalent in this election here. A lot of people took it upon themselves, felt empowered by technology to report what they see, feel, hear from each election, giving detailed accounts online with the hope of sharing that account as accurately as possible."

A check with blogs like yawningbread, singaporeelection, and sgrally showed that the James Gomez saga was the top election theme, followed closely by estate upgrading, according to Nexlabs, which monitors online trends.

The hottest Group Representation Constituency discussed was Aljunied.

One blog received about 5,000 to 6,000 hits, double the usual number.

Serious discussion aside, there were also political satires, like one podcast by bloggers mrbrown and Mr Miyagi.

The podcast, which was a parody of the James Gomez affair, had 60,000 downloads and some 100,000 partial downloads.

What do the numbers mean?

Said Associate Professor Randolph Kluver, executive director, Singapore Internet Research Centre, " In this election, clearly the Internet took on a more prominent role in helping to define the news agenda and helping people to sort through the issues, to discuss the issues. So there are these subtle transformations of Singapore's political culture, in terms of making politics a little less serious, a little less formal, increasing the ability of people to comment upon it, to add variations upon it, to reformulate policies in a more nuanced way that hasn't been there before."

Political parties also made their presence felt in cyberspace.

The People's Action Party rejuvenated its Young PAP website to include a forum to discuss the latest issues, while observers said opposition parties like the Workers' Party and the Singapore Democratic Party also tapped on the Internet.

The election may be over but observers say it is still too early to assess the impact of the Internet on the election.

The Information Communications and the Arts Ministry is currently studying this issue.

But one thing is certain -- the Internet community is only expected to grow further before the next general election. - CNA /ct

Why cannot mention Singabloodypore, illegal is it, or don't want to send me more traffic? So much for the ban on political blogging during elections. That was a great idea and an attempt at bluffing the public that completely failed. I am still waiting to be asked to register this site. Empty words being uttered in an attempt to put fear into bloggers that has monumentally failed.

Singapore

SDP's lawyer amends defence to "correct facts of the case"

The lawyer for Singapore Democratic Party's Chee Soon Juan and Chee Siok Chin has amended his defence to "correct the facts of the case".

M Ravi, who is representing the Chees, had on Wednesday submitted their defence of a defamation suit filed by PAP leaders.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew had sued the SDP's Central Executive Committee (CEC) for alleged defamatory remarks made in The New Democrat, the party newsletter.

Except for Dr Chee, his sister and the party, the rest of the CEC members have apologised.

In the amended defence, the Chees are now admitting that they were responsible for printing, publishing, selling and distributing The New Democrat.

They are also admitting responsibility for its content.

Chee Siok Chin is also admitting that she participated in a protest outside the CPF building in August last year.

Other points that the Chee siblings are admitting include the fact that MM Lee had previously sued Tang Liang Hong and J B Jeyeratnam for defamation.

The Chees are also admitting that Dr Chee Soon Juan had apologised to Mr Lee and had been declared bankrupt.

In their previous defence, they had denied all these points. - CNA/ir

Channelnewsasia.com

34,000 people sign petition against Took Leng How's death sentence

Lawyers for convicted murderer Took Leng How say some 34,000 people have signed a clemency petition against his death sentence.

The petition was submitted to President SR Nathan on Thursday, and a decision is expected over the next few months.

Took's parents took to the streets to ask Singaporeans for support for a plea for their son to be spared the death penalty.

The vegetable packer, a Malaysian, was sentenced to death in August last year for the murder of 8-year-old Huang Na in October 2004.

Since the verdict for the appeal against the death sentence in January was split, some of the petitioners felt the 22-year-old deserved a second chance.

Justice Kan Ting Chiu delivered the dissenting judgment that Took should be convicted for voluntarily causing hurt rather than murder. - CNA/ir

Channelnewsasia.com

Democrats in Sammyboy forum

Following the 2001 GE, the SDP spent 7 days in Internet forums posting its views, answering questions and responding to comments/suggestions.

We are doing the same in Sammyboy Forum following the recently concluded elections. We will participate in this chat-site for the next 7 days under the heading SDP = Reform during which we welcome questions and comments.

While we cannot answer every post, we will endeavour to respond to as many of you and cover as wide a range of topics as humanly possible. It is our effort to continue to spread our message and solicit input from our fellow citizens.

If you wish to participate in the discussion, please go to http://forums.delphiforums.com/sammyboymod/messages

Click this link here to skip the clutter and go straight to the SDP forum.

Singapore

Gomez Rally Speeches

From James Gomez's blog.



this video recording of James Gomez's powerful and memorable speech during the Workers' Party rally in Ang Mo Kio on May 4 2006.

Video recordings of Gomez's other rally speeches:

Serangoon Stadium and Aljunied rally speech: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6 and final part.

I would like to thank these "citizen journalists" for doing a wonderful job of recording these speeches for everybody to see and listen for themselves.

Singapore

On the carpet: Singapore

MARGARET JOHN

co-ordinator for Singapore and Malaysia, Amnesty International Canada

Your editorial Shadow Over Singapore (May 9) gets to the point of Singapore's reality. The population lives in a climate of fear, intimidated and silenced. Increased restrictions placed on the opposition during the recent election clearly show this lack of progress. Only by external pressure from foreign governments such as Canada will Singapore change.

Ottawa, for instance, could press the Singapore government to give its opposition the freedom to express openly its concerns about governance; urge Singapore to end its death penalty; insist that international observers attend political trials; and meet dissidents and human-rights activists -- they may be tomorrow's leaders.

Singapore

Crackdown on Opposition during Singapore elections

The following are brief points on what happened to the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) during the recently concluded general elections in Singapore (April 27 to May 6 – a total of 9 days):

Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, launched a lawsuit against the SDP and its 12 executive committee members during the election period. The lawsuit was over an article published in our Party’s newsletter, The New Democrat.

The Lees also sued the SDP’s printer and harassed him into not printing the Party’s election material including posters, flyers and the election issue of The New Democrat. The local media published stories about him having a mistress and not living with his wife. He was so frightened he didn’t dare to return to his own home.

Our only alternative was to make photocopies of The New Democrat. Even then, none of the photocopying shops wanted the business. We finally resorted to renting Xerox machines and making the copies ourselves.

We could not find a hotel that would rent us its rooms to us to hold a press conference and to introduce our candidates and campaign platform. (We managed to find a hotel only when we booked it under another organisation’s name.)

The landlord of our office has served notice that he wants the Party to vacate its premises in June 2006.

Several of the Party’s volunteers who had agreed to nominate the prospective candidates backed out at the last minute. Because of their pull-out, the SDP was unable to field a candidate in one of the constituencies.

On the morning of our first election rally on 28 April 2006, the company that was responsible for constructing the stage suddenly pulled out, saying that its office had been visited by “government officials.”

The police called up Party Secretary-General Chee Soon Juan and two of his colleagues for questioning over instances of “speaking in public without a permit.” The three had been selling The New Democrat (see photo below).

In the midst of the elections, Dr Chee Soon Juan was also called up for questioning by the authorities for attempting to leave Singapore on 30 March 2006 for the World Movement for Democracy in Istanbul, Turkey. The immigrations authority had seized Dr Chee’s passport.

During the campaign period, 10 of the Party’s executive committee decided to apologise to the Lees. Otherwise they would face a financially crippling lawsuit. Dr Chee and Ms Chee Siok Chin refused to apologise. Those who apologized included 5 candidates (the SDP fielded a total of 7 candidates in the elections) who spent two of the nine days in the Lees lawyer’s office to settle the terms of their capitulation. As a result, they were unable to campaign in the elections.

Being a bankrupt, Dr Chee was prohibited under the law from speaking at election rallies. The police even prevented him from going on stage to join his party colleagues.

When he spoke to the crowd who had gathered around him, the police indicated that they were investigating him for “speaking in public without a permit.”

At the end of one of the public rallies, a few of the SDP members protested the lawsuit by the Lees by taping up their mouths (see photo below). The police quickly announced that they were investigating the participants for violating the law.

Political parties were given two occasions to broadcast their campaign message. The SDP was allotted two-and-a-half minutes. The Government-controlled media insisted that certain statements in the Party’s message had to be taken out and others amended before it would allow the message to be taped and broadcast.

Before the elections, the Government banned the use of podcasting. The Singapore Democrats had said that it would depend on the new technology to help disseminate its campaign message because of the control of the media by the ruling party.

Election Department officials and Lees’ lawyers repeatedly visited the Party office and homes of the candidates, often late at night, to serve orders and writs on the candidates. This had the resultant effect of intimidating the candidates and distracting them from running an effective campaign.

A candidate from another opposition party is now under police investigation for “criminal intimidation” and has been prevented from leaving the country.

Short video clip of the SDP’s rally:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdkAKnWTshU

Singapore

335 Singaporeans voted in first overseas voting exercise

From ChannelNewsAsia:

SINGAPORE : Vote counting for Singapore's 2006 General Election ended on Wednesday with the tallying of the votes cast at eight overseas centres.

And 8 in 10 overseas Singaporeans voted for the People's Action Party (PAP).

This is the first overseas voting exercise in Singapore's electoral history.

When the registration of overseas voters closed, the number of electors stood at 1,017.

And the figure was nearly halved after Nomination Day, as 47 seats in the 84-seat Parliament were contested.

On polling day, 335 Singaporeans who were abroad, including 11 officers assigned by the Returning Officer to oversee the voting process overseas, voted at the eight overseas polling centres.

The centres were located in cities including Beijing, Canberra, London, Washington, San Francisco, Tokyo, Shanghai and Hong Kong.

After the polls closed, all the security processes that are adopted back home at the polling booths were applied at the overseas centres.

The ballot boxes were brought back under tight security, and were cleared in front of candidates or their election agents at the ITE Balestier Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

All in, it took just 45 minutes to count the overseas votes.

In this election, the overseas votes did not affect the election results.

This is because the winning margin based on the votes cast in Singapore was higher than the number of overseas voters for each constituency.

But where overseas votes are concerned, the Peoples' Action Party won in all the contested wards except for Nee Soon Central where the PAP lost to the Workers' Party by 2 votes to 1.

In opposition-held Potong Pasir, the PAP had nine votes and the Singapore Democratic Alliance had three.

As for the other opposition-held ward of Hougang, it was a draw of two votes for each candidate.

"I hope the qualification can be extended to allow more people to vote, especially those who are overseas for a long time. I believe they have a sense of participation and nation(hood)," said Workers' Party Secretary-General Low Thia Khiang.

This is the first time overseas voting is being held for Singapore's General Election.

However, some Singaporeans asked whether these votes really matter, especially when the results of the polls were announced on Polling Day and candidates who were duly elected were declared as members of Parliament.

The Elections Department has explained overseas votes do matter, if the votes counted locally for a particular ward is inconclusive.

The announcement of the result would have been deferred till overseas votes are counted.

It says the number of overseas votes will be added to the local votes.

The total number of votes will also be published in the Government Gazette, so every vote by Singaporeans does matter during the final count.

Singapore

Capitalise this

Thanks for the anonymous tip:

We appeal for all charges on him to be dropped. Wear it and show it on the streets. Take an active stand. Everyone makes honest mistakes.

We are in no way promoting any Political parties nor spreading any political propaganda...

...honest...

Yeah right! If capitalism in Singapore tasted ever so sweet, it would be for things like these. I was spoilt for choice trying to pick a product to feature here. They have everything. Apparel and t-shirts for boys and girls of all shapes and sizes, from hoodies to thongs with Gomez's face on it. There's even something for the family dog. Guevara is out. Gomez is in!!

From Cafepress.com

Singapore

Devan Nair on Jeyaretnam

In this testimony, recorded in 1999, former President and PAP founding member C.V. Devan Nair pays tribute to J. B. Jeyaretnam. More tellingly, he gives us an insight into how Lee Kuan Yew devised the complex gerrymandering schemes which dominate the present-day political landscape in Singapore - super-sized GRCs and the redrawing of electoral boundaries, not to mention the frequent abuse of the legal process in order to silence critics. It is an open secret by now that the WP managed to garner a majority in the Serangoon Gardens precinct of Aljunied GRC - the ward held by Lim Hwee Hua, previously of Marine Parade GRC. It was said that she had been added to the Aljunied slate to counter the feminine appeal of Sylvia Lim. Now that this tactic has obviously failed, will Serangoon Gardens be carved out of Aljunied GRC in favour of a more pro-PAP precinct at the next polls?

------------------------------------------------------------

A SERIOUS threat of closure faces the Workers' Party led by Mr J. B. Jeyaretnam because of failure to pay the forbidding damages awarded against the Party by a court in Singapore. One hopes against hope that this might be avoided at the last minute. It is a slim hope. The world has come to assume, rightly or wrongly, that the political tactics used by the governing PAP against opposition politicians have for some time come to include suing their pants off, forcing them into bankruptcy and losing their seats in parliament as a result. Now the same device is resorted to against opposition political parties themselves, as registered institutions. The onus of proof is on the government of Singapore - not on global public opinion.

Nothing that smacks of opposition seems safe in Singapore any longer. Singaporeans must sooner or later come to realise the harsh truth that nobody in Singapore is truly saved unless ALL are SEEN to be saved. The post of no return has long passed for Singaporeans, and one fears they will perforce learn this lesson the hard way. In the ultimate analysis, this is probably best. The more painful the price paid to learn basic human lessons, the more firmly might they become embedded in the national fibre. A free Singapore will arise and justify the sacrifices and efforts of undaunted Singaporeans, now including the courageous Chee Soon Juan, who had immolated themselves on the altar of freedom. Phoenix-like, their dreams will rise once again from their ashes. Were this process not true, the world would have come to an end long ago.

It is just as well that I release this requiem now. If not timely yet, it will be soon enough. Here goes, for good or ill to myself:

Some months after I was kicked upstairs to the presidency of the republic of Singapore in October 1981, there was a by-election in the parliamentary constituency of Anson, which I had held prior to my ill-fated elevation. I had won that seat with a comfortable majority of some 80 percent of the votes cast. The PAP's candidate in the by-election was a relative unknown, while the Workers Party put up J.B Jeyaretnam. To the consternation of the PAP, Jeyaretnam won.

The day after the by-election verdict was declared, I had lunch with the Prime Minister. I was amazed at how he fretted and fumed like a caged fury. As I saw it, Jeyaretnam constituted no threat at all to the PAP whether in parliament or outside it. For one thing, despite Jeyas courage, he displayed a woeful lack of economics. He clearly never knew at any point of time how Singapore clicked economically. And it was as plain as a pikestaff to me that in five years of free performance in 'parliament against the likes of Dr Goh Keng Swee, Mr Lim Kim San et al, he would stand exposed in public for his abysmal ignorance of economics.

In truth, if I had to cope with J.B Jeyaretnam as a hostile delegate at regular National Trade Union Congress (NTUC) Delegates Conferences, I would have given him all the rope and more he wanted to hang himself with. And after free and open arguments over three days of conferencing, I would have beaten him hands down at the ballot box. I knew this, as did the workers. For they knew that in the colonial days, Jeyaretnam had never stood on a picket line. I had, not once but several times, not only stood on picket lines, but also bedded down for the night on the gravel with the workers whom I led.

I told all this to Kuan Yew. Nothing I said sank in. He fretted about a potential critical percentage drop in PAP votes across all the constituencies that could eventually bring the PAP government down, and he wouldn't stand for it. Only later did I realise that this was the moment that started his formidable brain box ticking away furiously at the fecund gerrymandering schemes he was to introduce later to ensure that all opposition parties would be put in a Gordion bind that would make it impossible for them to ever achieve control of parliament, unless an Alexander came along. Such a possibility appears impossible now, unless it takes the awesome shape of shattering geo-political circumstances already building up around Singapore.

Immediately, however, Kuan Yew's attention was concentrated on how he would deal with J.B Jeyaretnam in parliament. I was quite alarmed at some of the things he told me at that lunch. "Look," he said, "Jeyaretnam cant win the infighting. I'll tell you why. WE are in charge. Every government ministry and department is under our control. And in the infighting, he will go down for the count every time." And I will never forget his last words. "I will make him crawl on his bended knees, and beg for mercy."

Jeyaretnam was made of sterner stuff. To his eternal credit he never did crawl on bended knees, or ever begged for mercy. And it is to Lee Kuan Yew's eternal shame that Jeyaretnam will leave the political scene with his head held high, enjoying a martyrdom conferred on him by Lee. Lest I be misunderstood, let me state that Jeya more than deserves the crown of the martyr for his indomitable courage and dignity in the face of the vilest persecution.

Even greater human spirits than Jeyaretnam had refused to bend their knees to Lee Kuan Yew. It is my considered view that the greatest human being living in Singapore today is one who declined to surrender to the intimidation of prolonged incarceration and restrictions imposed on him without trial for a total period which exceeds that suffered by Nelson Mandela. And here was the mark of true greatness. He emerged from the experience like a god unembittered. His name is Chia Thye Poh. And it is Lee Kuan Yew who emerged from the episode as the knave and fool of his own mindless vindictiveness, while the real conqueror smiles benignly - unnoted, of course, by the local media. For only sound waves from the Istana Annexe are picked up and regurgitated by His Master¹s Voice.

There is no political justification for obliging the Workers' Party to close down. And not a shred of moral justification. What lies behind the move is among the most brazen vindictiveness ever shown in the political life of Singapore. It merely adds one more nail in the coffin of the PAP's reputation when the true history of the party will be exposed to the world, as it surely will be one day in the coming decades of the third millennium. As mankind accelerates to the abyss, the shining memories of the past will certainly not include Lee Kuan Yew and the department store dummies he boasts today as his acolytes. He clearly does not possess the foresight to avoid such a fate.

I gladly salute J.B. Jeyaretnam and the Worker's Party at this highly deserved requiem, even if I never once had shared their platform.

C. V. Devan Nair.
Former President
Republic of Singapore.
March 26, 1999

Gomez to be questioned today for 3rd time

From the James Gomez Blog.
(Click the photo to go to the Online Petition)

James Gomez is currently at the Police Cantonment Complex waiting to be questioned again by the police today, May 10.

This will be the third time. On May 7, he was detained at the airport, brought to the Police Cantonment Complex and questioned for 8 hours. On May 9, he was again questioned at the same location for another 5 hours. On both these occassions he was questioned by ASP Christopher Jacob of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

Singapore

Shadow Over Singapore

From Globeandmail.com

Singapore's Prime Minister, Lee Hsien Loong, has paid lip service to the need for more openness in apolitical system that is democratic in name but authoritarian in practice. But his deeds show that the eldest son of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew is following in his father's footsteps, with the same lack of tolerance for political dissent, open debate or free media -- essential ingredients of a functioning democ-racy.

Prime Minister Lee's ruling People's Action Party won all but two of the 84 seats in the country's parliamentary election on Saturday, the same number it held after the last vote in 2001. But its share of popular support dropped to 66.6 per cent from 75.3 per cent. In Western democracies, such a slippage in its overwhelming approval might have prompted the political leadership to reassess its policies and priorities. The fact that the small opposition parties made their greatest headway among younger voters who yearn for more political freedoms to go along with the huge economic gains of recent years ought to be a spur to modest reform. What Singapore's election result has prompted, though, is intensified harassment of political opponents.

James Gomez, whose opposition Workers' Party won a single seat, is being investigated by police for something called "criminal intimidation." His alleged crime: He incorrectly blamed the elections department (which is an arm of the prime minister's office) for losing one of his required polling forms, an accusation for which he later apologized. His real crime? The small party won 16.3 per cent of the vote, up from a mere 2.7 per cent in 2001, including a third of the ballots cast in the Prime Minister's own constituency. The leaders of another opposition party, the Singapore Democratic Party, face libel actions from both Prime Minister Lee and his father. This is an old tactic employed by the ruling party to silence critics and bankrupt political opponents, which in turn disqualifies them from holding elective office.

Lee Kuan Yew held the reins of power for more than three decades before stepping down in 1990. While his son, now 54, was being groomed for the top job, the elder Mr. Lee remained a senior minister in the cabinet of his chosen successor, Goh Chok Tong. After the younger Mr. Lee became Prime Minister in 2004, the 82-year-old family patriarch retained his considerable influence with the new title of "minister mentor." His mentoring is all too apparent.

Singapore

Singapore beyond Lee

Philip Bowring: Singapore beyond Lee
International Herald Tribune

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 2006


HONG KONG Every regime has its day, so the result of Saturday's election in Singapore provided a glimpse of what its politics may look like when Lee Kuan Yew, founder and mentor of the People's Action Party (PAP) and scourge of all opponents, is no longer around. At 82, he played an active role in this campaign.

For sure, his son, Lee Hsien Loong, fighting his first election as prime minister, was able to claim that winning the same number of seats as in the previous election - 82 out of 84 - was "a clear vote of confidence" in his administration.

However, the more relevant statistic was that the PAP's share of the vote fell by 8.7 percentage points to 66.6 percent compared with the 2001 election, when Goh Chok Tong was prime minister. In Lee Hsien Loong's constituency, uncontested in 2001, the PAP polled marginally less than its average.

Given a strong economy, the opposition's lack of significant media access and the huge organizational and legal obstacles placed in its way by a PAP leadership, with open disregard for the benefits of liberal democracy with a strong opposition and the possibility of a change of government, the result could be seen as the biggest setback for the PAP since 1981.

That was the year when the PAP lost a by-election to an opposition lawyer, J.B. Jeyaretnam. With it went a monopoly in Parliament the PAP had enjoyed since 1968.

Jeyaretnam later lost an action brought by the government and in 1986 was made bankrupt and disbarred from Parliament and legal practice. The judicial committee of the Privy Council, to which appeal on the issue of disbarment was then available, found that he suffered "a grievous injustice." He was ultimately reinstated as a lawyer. In 2001, Jeyaretnam was bankrupted again following his failure to pay damages in libel actions brought by ministers.

Since 1981 the electoral system has also been changed so that most members of Parliament are now elected from five or six member constituencies where the PAP's organizational strength and connections to the government machinery overwhelm the much- harassed opposition candidates.

Districts that have elected opposition members have previously been threatened with official neglect. The opposition won two of the nine single- member constituencies, but none of the group ones. But in one where a well-known young liberal activist, James Gomez, was a candidate up against Foreign Minister George Yeo, it got 44 percent.

The PAP leadership continues to make great play of its success in government, as though it were entirely responsible for the economic rise of Singapore over the past 40 years. It accuses those who query current policies of being ungrateful for the past achievements of the leaders.

But what an increasing number of people appear to recognize is that other economies in East Asia have done at least as well over that period - Hong Kong under an undemocratic but liberal colonial-style bureaucracy, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand under both democratic and authoritarian regimes.

Indeed, Singapore stands out in East Asia not for exceptional economic success but for the immobility of politics still dominated by the presence of Lee Kuan Yew, in power since 1959. Its system would come in for more scrutiny internationally if it were not so useful to U.S. strategic interests and foreign multinationals or so successful in subduing the foreign media with carrots and sticks.

The Singapore leadership likes to scorn the "instability" of Asian liberal democracies such as Thailand, the Philippines and Taiwan. But at some point it will likely have to address demands for greater openness and for power-sharing with middle and lower income groups, which have benefited from economic growth but feel excluded from power.

The PAP is a small, tight-knit party. The leadership controls the government bureaucracy and the state- owned enterprises, which play a large part in an economy that is dominated by multinationals and state enterprises.

The PAP has such a grip on the levers of power that it could be a long time before any opposition can pretend to be an alternative government. Opposition leaders like Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan, who threaten to gain popular momentum, have been successfully sued and financially ruined. There is also the unspoken fear of Muslim-majority Malaysia and Indonesia, and the importance of Chinese identity, to keep the majority in line.

But none of this can cover up the fact that the PAP has been losing popularity. There are those who will always follow Lee Kuan Yew but have less respect for the second generation headed by the elder son, Hsien Loong, and the daughter-in-law, Ho Ching, who runs Temasek, the giant state holding company.

Low income groups note high and rising income gaps (which would be even bigger if the army of very low paid foreign workers is included). Small businessmen resent the dominance of foreign investors and huge state enterprises. A younger generation is anxious for the greater social and political freedoms now enjoyed in much of the rest of Asia.

And an aging population that has generally been supportive of the government now finds that decades of forced savings have had such low returns that a comfortable retirement is not in sight. But it could be another decade before Singaporeans decide that enough is enough, and have their own velvet revolution.

Singapore

Stephen Colbert vs. Mr Brown: What’s the point of political satire?

From Theory is the Reason:

I doubt folks back in Singapore get to watch The Colbert Report, since it barely makes sense to anyone outside America, let alone Singapore… right? Actually no.

It’s not about how globalized our society is today, but more about how America offers us a flip-side to what Singapore could be like should our political ideology transform overnight to a full-on liberal one. But before we proceed, it’d be good to explain what The Colbert Report is about… This is a satirical television program on Comedy Central that stars Stephen Colbert, best known previously as a correspondent for The Daily Show. The show depicts the further activities of the Stephen Colbert correspondent character from The Daily Show, but in a different context — a direct, deeply mocking satire of conservative political pundit programs like The O’Reilly Factor, Hannity and Colmes, and Scarborough Country and other opinion-news shows in general. He plays an extreme conservative, revelling his routines in liberal goodness, which is really darn poetic if you asked me.

As seen all over the blogosphere, Colbert recently paid a blistering comedy “tribute” to President Bush at the White House Correspondent Dinner Saturday night. From the opening of this C-Span video (C-span preferred Google Video over YouTube), you can already see how George Bush wasn’t amused right from the start. With good reason, since he’s quietly seated next to Colbert while being the butt of most of his jokes. Given Colbert’s performance, I felt that it wasn’t as polished as his show, but the recklessness was priceless. It was a dare that stirred the hearts of many (last count 54,000!) across the nation.

But what’s the point of all this? Does it change anything?

1. Satire works.
However conservative your country’s politics is, humor is like the backdoor to freedom of expression. Mr Brown did so with his “Bak Chor Mee podcast” which poked fun at the demise of James Gomez from the Workers’ Party, who fumbled with his election forms. It’s since been a podcast hit and has even spun off into a popular Tur Kwa desktop wallpaper and soon to be T-shirt! Mr. Gomez has since been been arrested detained and questioned by police, under the accusation of stage-managing the entire minority candidate certificate episode from the start. Aiyoh!

2. Freedom of speech = risks vs. rewards
After Colbert gave his speech, most bloggers felt satisfied having their hero tell the president off. Mr Brown’s “persistently non-political” podcast also gave Singaporeans an outlet for their disgust at the political play during the elections. Yet in both cases, there was no violence, no hatred, just plain old intelligent fun. It was talking high-brow issues straight from the gut, and making it enjoyable for everyone to understand. Interestingly, both the President and Colbert handled the interplay pretty amicably

3. In-depth social cue on what we’re really thinking
Stemming back into our own identity, it’s hard to see what we’re thinking about without a proper “mirror”. The mass media attempts to tell us what we think, but opinionated daredevils like Colbert and MrBrown can get deeper into these issues on time and on the mark. They’re really telling you what you want to hear, something which might have been otherwise suppressed elsewhere. They give you that “thumbs up” to what you believe in and tell you that the innate feeling you have is justified and good.

Ultimately, personalities like Stephen Colbert and Mr Brown serve a critical function to each of our societies. As shown by their popularity, they don’t just entertain, they stimulate.

Tuxedo rental: $100. Tickets to the annual White House Correspondents Association dinner: $80. 24 minutes of ripping on the president of the United States on live television: PRICELESS.

Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are my latest favourite satirists. But if you missed the whole thing last week, worry not my friends. You can watch it here, and the priceless Bush impersonation sketch by Steve Bridges here. Are you ready to wet your appetite..? Here's a clip from the Daily Show. Go on... You know you want to watch this grainy but still contagiously funny video.

"Bloggers 1, Mainstream Media 0" - Stephen Colbert

Singapore

CPJ slams PAP: S'pore govt bent on stifling critics

From the Singapore Democrat:

New York, May 5, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned about criminal defamation charges recently filed by Singapore Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Prime Minister Lee Hsein Loong against politicians responsible for the production of an opposition-run newspaper, The New Democrat.

The Lees’ lawyer also threatened to file defamation charges against Melodies Press Co., which prints the paper. The New Democrat, an officially licensed political news publication since the mid-1990s, is managed and produced once or twice a year by a 12-person executive committee consisting of opposition Singapore Democrat Party members.

The Lees filed the charges last week against the newspaper’s entire executive committee. The case stems from an un-bylined story that ran in the latest edition of The New Democrat, which questioned the People’s Action Party-led government’s handling of a recent corruption scandal at the National Kidney Foundation. The story broadly criticizes the government for creating a “secretive and non-accountable system” and contends that higher-level officials should be held accountable.

The aggravated defamation charges come in the middle of an unusually heated parliamentary election campaign. The vote is scheduled for May 6.

Singapore’s media is tightly controlled through prohibitive laws like the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act and the Defamation Act. The Undesirable Publications Act allows the government to prohibit the import, sale, and circulation of any publication it judges to be “contrary to the public’s interests.”

People’s Action Party members, including party founder and former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, have sued for defamation in several suits against local and foreign journalists.

“The tactic of using the courts fools no one; the government is clearly bent on stifling its critics,” CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. “We urge the government leaders involved to immediately drop these criminal charges and begin to allow more political discussion in the media.”

Aggravated defamation charges carry monetary damages of up to 500,000 Singapore dollars (US$312,500) and possible jail terms. Six of the eight politicians directly involved in the production of The New Democrat‘s most recent edition have publicly apologized for the story. Rather than face the cost of legislation and possible punishment, Melodies Press also apologized its role in producing the publication through a paid advertisement in the government-controlled Straits Times newspaper.

Chee Soon Juan, the Democratic Party secretary-general, and his sister, Chee Siok Chin, a candidate, have refused to apologize for the article.

The Lees’ lawyer has also threatened to hold the accused parties liable for additional defamation charges for each copy of The New Democrat sold since the suit was filed in the last week of April. A Singapore Democrat Party member told CPJ that the party had sold around 5,000 copies of the 10,000-copy print run when the Lees filed the charges last week.

People’s Action Party leaders, including former prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, have a long record of filing defamation complaints against opposition politicians, bankrupting several in the process. Chee Soon Juan, a free speech advocate, recently lost a three-year battle in a defamation case brought by Lee Kuan Yew.

In early April, the People’s Action Party-led government banned political discussions over the Internet during the election campaign, effectively pulling the plug on opposition parties’ plans to bypass the state-controlled mainstream media and promote their policies and broadcast their rallies using Internet technologies.

The Committee to Protect Journalists is an independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1981 to promote press freedom worldwide by defending the rights of journalists to report the news without fear of reprisal.

Singapore

AmicaCuriae

[May or may not be a picture of AmicaCuriae.]



For those of you who haven't realised it yet, I need to introduce yet another new contributor. Someone who took over for me at the height of the election fever and together with a few other members did an excellant job ensuring that they and others completely ignored the 'political blogging and podcasting ban'. Well done guys and girls [I assume]. So without further ado I give you AmicaCuriae, who has been posting enthusiastically for the last week or so.

As with most of the contributors they wish merely to be assessed by the topics they write about and how they discuss them. Not who their father or mother is, or what school they attended.

Singapore

Courts in Singapore come under scrutiny

Guess who is back? Wasn't that a fun election. Who could have imagined that the PAP would first be claiming that they will have a complete walk over, then they have to deny that and argue that they are expecting a small drop - but to sum it up, the results do indicate a fall back to the dark economic days of 1997, which was the year that the PAP garnered only 65% of the vote, when they won 34 of 36 contested seats. They blamed the economic downturn for that fall in support. So what is to blame now, that Sept 11 happened too long ago or my little hypothesis?

The ruling party won a landslide victory in the previous election in 2001, when it was under Goh, sweeping 75 percent of valid votes and all but two of the 84 parliamentary seats.

PAP leaders have said they would be happy to win at least 65 percent of the vote in this election and to wrestle back the two opposition-held seats[Failed].

"This election is really about PM Lee Hsien Loong and his new team and whether the electorate will go for the 'staying together, moving ahead' slogan," said Antonio Rappa, assistant professor of political science at the state-run National University of Singapore. [What was LHL vote, something about being the lowest ever].

"If he can get at least 68 percent, it would be a super strong signal from the electorate that they are very confident of his leadership ability in the future. This would mean an increased likelihood of him continuing beyond the next three to four elections," he said.[So can we assume that people are not confident in LHL?]

Diane Mauzy, a political science lecturer at Canada's University of British Columbia, who has researched and written on Singapore politics, said "The PAP would be delighted with 70 percent or more of the votes. Sixty-five percent they could live with, but were it down to 60 percent, I think the PAP would be shaken."TMC April 27 2006 [PAP may not be shaking but LHL might be.]

And below the lack of judiciary independence from the electorate, [read the Lee family] continues to be assessed in Canada.

By Donald Greenlees International Herald Tribune

TUESDAY, MAY 9, 2006

From the manicured tropical gardens to the litter-free streets and glistening shopping malls, there appears to be something fundamentally clean and decent about Singapore. And if the island republic's physical appearance is burnished to a high shine, so is its reputation as a place to do business.

It regularly comes near the top of international surveys as an efficient and corruption-free place to invest. Hence, many multinational companies choose Singapore as a sanitary refuge to establish headquarters operations amid the pollution and administrative chaos of many of its Asian neighbors.

One of the cornerstones of Singapore's appeal to multinational investors has been the soundness of its justice system, at least in commercial cases.

But that reputation for reliability in arbitrating commercial disputes is under increasing scrutiny. It is an issue that analysts say could have far-reaching implications for all foreign investors who have sought out Singapore as a haven and for the important role the city-state has played as a reliable legal jurisdiction in Asia.

A court of appeal in Canada is being asked for the first time to determine whether legal decisions made in Singapore are sufficiently fair and impartial to meet the standards of justice of other developed countries.

In documents tendered to the appeals court in the province of Ontario, Singapore's judicial reputation has been subject to scathing attack. Lawyers have alleged in court documents that the Singapore legal system is an "utterly politicized component of executive rule" in which there is no guarantee of fairness even in commercial cases. The Singaporean Ministry of Law rejects these claims.

The case, now before the Ontario Court of Appeal, has also become a forum for some critics of Singapore's political and justice system and served to resurrect grievances about old legal cases brought against opponents of the People's Action Party, which has been in power since 1959.

"Whichever way this case goes, it is, and it is going to continue to be, quite damaging for Singapore because it's highlighted a lot of apparent or perceived problems with the Singapore judiciary," said Michael Backman, a consultant based in London and author of several books on doing business in Asia.

The case centers on a dispute between EnerNorth Industries, an Ontario-based oil and natural gas company, and a Singaporean company, Oakwell Engineering. In 1997, the two companies entered a joint venture to build and operate two barge-mounted electricity generating plants in India.

When the project ran into trouble a year later, EnerNorth bought out Oakwell's stake in the venture in a deal that included promises to pay $2.79 million and royalties once financing was obtained and the project was operational. A settlement agreement provided for any further disputes to be settled in the Singapore courts. EnerNorth, based in Toronto, subsequently failed to raise the financing for the project and, in 2000, sold out to an Indian company. In 2002, Oakwell sued EnerNorth in Singapore for failure to pay the $2.79 million and royalties. The Singaporean High Court, and later the Singaporean Court of Appeal, which is the final appellate court in Singapore, awarded Oakwell the disputed amounts, full costs and interest amounting to about $5.4 million.

As EnerNorth had no assets in Singapore, Oakwell applied to the Ontario Superior Court to have the award enforced in Canada. Last Aug. 2, the superior court ruled in Oakwell's favor.

But EnerNorth's lawyers have appealed. At the heart of their case is a fierce attack on the integrity of the Singapore justice system. In a submission to the appeals court, David Wingfield, EnerNorth's lawyer, argued that foreign legal systems had to meet Canadian constitutional standards for their rulings to be upheld in Canada.

"What EnerNorth is faced with, however, is having its assets seized under Canadian law to pay a judgment that was granted by a corrupt legal system before biased judges in a jurisdiction that operates outside the rule of law," he said in a submission to the court. He added: "The uncontradicted evidence in this case, from leading international experts, reveals that Singapore is ruled by a small oligarchy who control all facets of the Singapore state, including the judiciary, which is utterly politicized."

In large part, Wingfield based his allegations on the record of prosecutions of political critics of the People's Action Party, including Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, a lawyer of Sri Lankan descent, who for a time was Singapore's sole opposition member of Parliament. Jeyaretnam was convicted of fraud in a series of trials in Singapore in the 1980s in connection with donations made to his Workers' Party. He later managed to appeal to the judicial committee of the Privy Council in London over a decision to have him struck off the Singapore Law Society's rolls. The Privy Council, which was then the final court of appeal for such professional disciplinary actions, decided to review the initial conviction against Jeyaretnam. In a celebrated judgment in October 1988, it expressed "deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments," Jeyaretnam and a co-defendant had suffered "a grievous injustice."

Wingfield in his submission to the court in Ontario also cited the opinion of the International Commission of Jurists on a more recent case involving Jeyaretnam that "the High Court of Singapore has done little to overcome the Singapore courts' reputation as improperly compliant to the interests of the country's ruling People's Action Party."

The conduct of legal actions against political figures in Singapore has long been the subject of controversy, but the country's courts have had a strong reputation for fair and impartial conduct in commercial proceedings.

When Gerald Day, the Ontario Superior Court judge, agreed last year to uphold the award made in Singapore against EnerNorth, he wrote, "Historically, there is no evidence of bias or unfairness by the Singapore court in private commercial proceedings." He also found that there was no evidence of bias "in this specific case" and "no reason to doubt the impartiality of the judges who heard the case in Singapore."

Pointing to Day's statements, the Singaporean Ministry of Law said the Ontario Superior Court had "refused to lend any credence to EnerNorth's spurious allegation of a biased Singapore judiciary." In a written response, it said EnerNorth had been represented in Singapore by lawyers of its choice and had not alleged that the Singapore courts or any of its judges were biased against it at the time of the initial court hearings.

The ministry also said the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, which is based in Hong Kong, had "consistently rated the Singapore judicial system as one of the best in the region, and emphasized that Singapore has one of the most fair and transparent legal systems in the world." The ministry added, "Singapore prides itself on having an independent and impartial judiciary."

Still, EnerNorth's lawyers produced a number of affidavits from its own experts, including Francis Seow, a former Singapore solicitor general and judge turned prominent critic of the government; and Ross Worthington, a professor of governance and World Bank consultant. Both asserted that the People's Action Party, or PAP, and the executive controlled all aspects of public life, including the judiciary.

Wingfield, the EnerNorth lawyer, also quoted a report in court from the New York City Bar Association that warned American companies to be wary of agreeing to let commercial disputes be settled in Singapore courts as EnerNorth did. The bar association said the Singapore government "had been willing to decimate the rule of law for the benefit of political interests." But it also warned U.S. companies that in doing business in Singapore, they were "likely to encounter a wide variety of enterprises in which the government has an economic interest."

"The same forces which have led that judiciary to be sensitive to the PAP government's political interests would lead it to take account of its economic interests," the report said.

The basis of EnerNorth's appeal is that Day, the superior court judge, required EnerNorth lawyers to prove specific bias against the company by the Singaporean courts, which the judge found they had failed to do. Wingfield argued that it was simply sufficient to establish that Singapore's legal system did not meet Canadian standards.

The Ontario Appeals Court finished hearing the case in April and under an informal six-month rule is likely to announce its decision by the end of the summer, according to lawyers. But both sides have indicated that they will seek to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, meaning that the case could drag on and could become a test of recognition of foreign legal jurisdictions.

Lawyers for Oakwell Engineering maintain in their submissions to the courts in Canada that the issue has already been resolved under Canadian law and should not be reopened. They said EnerNorth had chosen to attack the quality of justice only because it had lost the case in Singapore - a jurisdiction it had freely chosen for settlement of any disputes with Oakwell. They said the company had not raised objections during the trial in Singapore and had failed to prove or even establish a "reasonable apprehension" of bias against it.

In its case before the Ontario Court of Appeal, Oakwell's lawyers said EnerNorth had in fact been represented by a lawyer who witnesses said had strong links to the People's Action Party, while Oakwell had been represented by Philip Jeyaretnam, the son of the opposition figure.

They said the case had been "heard before the courts of a country built on foreign investment, with an impeccable reputation for fairness to foreign businesses like EnerNorth."

But Backman, the consultant and author, said the risk for Singapore, regardless of the verdict in Canada, was that foreign companies might become increasingly wary about business transactions in the city-state. If EnerNorth wins, he said by telephone, courts in other countries might also come under pressure not to enforce Singapore legal judgments. "This will only impact on the desire of investors to invest and remain in Singapore," he said.

From the manicured tropical gardens to the litter-free streets and glistening shopping malls, there appears to be something fundamentally clean and decent about Singapore. And if the island republic's physical appearance is burnished to a high shine, so is its reputation as a place to do business.

It regularly comes near the top of international surveys as an efficient and corruption-free place to invest. Hence, many multinational companies choose Singapore as a sanitary refuge to establish headquarters operations amid the pollution and administrative chaos of many of its Asian neighbors.

One of the cornerstones of Singapore's appeal to multinational investors has been the soundness of its justice system, at least in commercial cases.

But that reputation for reliability in arbitrating commercial disputes is under increasing scrutiny. It is an issue that analysts say could have far-reaching implications for all foreign investors who have sought out Singapore as a haven and for the important role the city-state has played as a reliable legal jurisdiction in Asia.

A court of appeal in Canada is being asked for the first time to determine whether legal decisions made in Singapore are sufficiently fair and impartial to meet the standards of justice of other developed countries.

In documents tendered to the appeals court in the province of Ontario, Singapore's judicial reputation has been subject to scathing attack. Lawyers have alleged in court documents that the Singapore legal system is an "utterly politicized component of executive rule" in which there is no guarantee of fairness even in commercial cases. The Singaporean Ministry of Law rejects these claims.

The case, now before the Ontario Court of Appeal, has also become a forum for some critics of Singapore's political and justice system and served to resurrect grievances about old legal cases brought against opponents of the People's Action Party, which has been in power since 1959.

"Whichever way this case goes, it is, and it is going to continue to be, quite damaging for Singapore because it's highlighted a lot of apparent or perceived problems with the Singapore judiciary," said Michael Backman, a consultant based in London and author of several books on doing business in Asia.

The case centers on a dispute between EnerNorth Industries, an Ontario-based oil and natural gas company, and a Singaporean company, Oakwell Engineering. In 1997, the two companies entered a joint venture to build and operate two barge-mounted electricity generating plants in India.

When the project ran into trouble a year later, EnerNorth bought out Oakwell's stake in the venture in a deal that included promises to pay $2.79 million and royalties once financing was obtained and the project was operational. A settlement agreement provided for any further disputes to be settled in the Singapore courts. EnerNorth, based in Toronto, subsequently failed to raise the financing for the project and, in 2000, sold out to an Indian company. In 2002, Oakwell sued EnerNorth in Singapore for failure to pay the $2.79 million and royalties. The Singaporean High Court, and later the Singaporean Court of Appeal, which is the final appellate court in Singapore, awarded Oakwell the disputed amounts, full costs and interest amounting to about $5.4 million.

As EnerNorth had no assets in Singapore, Oakwell applied to the Ontario Superior Court to have the award enforced in Canada. Last Aug. 2, the superior court ruled in Oakwell's favor.

But EnerNorth's lawyers have appealed. At the heart of their case is a fierce attack on the integrity of the Singapore justice system. In a submission to the appeals court, David Wingfield, EnerNorth's lawyer, argued that foreign legal systems had to meet Canadian constitutional standards for their rulings to be upheld in Canada.

"What EnerNorth is faced with, however, is having its assets seized under Canadian law to pay a judgment that was granted by a corrupt legal system before biased judges in a jurisdiction that operates outside the rule of law," he said in a submission to the court. He added: "The uncontradicted evidence in this case, from leading international experts, reveals that Singapore is ruled by a small oligarchy who control all facets of the Singapore state, including the judiciary, which is utterly politicized."

In large part, Wingfield based his allegations on the record of prosecutions of political critics of the People's Action Party, including Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, a lawyer of Sri Lankan descent, who for a time was Singapore's sole opposition member of Parliament. Jeyaretnam was convicted of fraud in a series of trials in Singapore in the 1980s in connection with donations made to his Workers' Party. He later managed to appeal to the judicial committee of the Privy Council in London over a decision to have him struck off the Singapore Law Society's rolls. The Privy Council, which was then the final court of appeal for such professional disciplinary actions, decided to review the initial conviction against Jeyaretnam. In a celebrated judgment in October 1988, it expressed "deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments," Jeyaretnam and a co-defendant had suffered "a grievous injustice."

Wingfield in his submission to the court in Ontario also cited the opinion of the International Commission of Jurists on a more recent case involving Jeyaretnam that "the High Court of Singapore has done little to overcome the Singapore courts' reputation as improperly compliant to the interests of the country's ruling People's Action Party."

The conduct of legal actions against political figures in Singapore has long been the subject of controversy, but the country's courts have had a strong reputation for fair and impartial conduct in commercial proceedings.

When Gerald Day, the Ontario Superior Court judge, agreed last year to uphold the award made in Singapore against EnerNorth, he wrote, "Historically, there is no evidence of bias or unfairness by the Singapore court in private commercial proceedings." He also found that there was no evidence of bias "in this specific case" and "no reason to doubt the impartiality of the judges who heard the case in Singapore."

Pointing to Day's statements, the Singaporean Ministry of Law said the Ontario Superior Court had "refused to lend any credence to EnerNorth's spurious allegation of a biased Singapore judiciary." In a written response, it said EnerNorth had been represented in Singapore by lawyers of its choice and had not alleged that the Singapore courts or any of its judges were biased against it at the time of the initial court hearings.

The ministry also said the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy, which is based in Hong Kong, had "consistently rated the Singapore judicial system as one of the best in the region, and emphasized that Singapore has one of the most fair and transparent legal systems in the world." The ministry added, "Singapore prides itself on having an independent and impartial judiciary."

Still, EnerNorth's lawyers produced a number of affidavits from its own experts, including Francis Seow, a former Singapore solicitor general and judge turned prominent critic of the government; and Ross Worthington, a professor of governance and World Bank consultant. Both asserted that the People's Action Party, or PAP, and the executive controlled all aspects of public life, including the judiciary.

Wingfield, the EnerNorth lawyer, also quoted a report in court from the New York City Bar Association that warned American companies to be wary of agreeing to let commercial disputes be settled in Singapore courts as EnerNorth did. The bar association said the Singapore government "had been willing to decimate the rule of law for the benefit of political interests." But it also warned U.S. companies that in doing business in Singapore, they were "likely to encounter a wide variety of enterprises in which the government has an economic interest."

"The same forces which have led that judiciary to be sensitive to the PAP government's political interests would lead it to take account of its economic interests," the report said.

The basis of EnerNorth's appeal is that Day, the superior court judge, required EnerNorth lawyers to prove specific bias against the company by the Singaporean courts, which the judge found they had failed to do. Wingfield argued that it was simply sufficient to establish that Singapore's legal system did not meet Canadian standards.

The Ontario Appeals Court finished hearing the case in April and under an informal six-month rule is likely to announce its decision by the end of the summer, according to lawyers. But both sides have indicated that they will seek to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Court, meaning that the case could drag on and could become a test of recognition of foreign legal jurisdictions.

Lawyers for Oakwell Engineering maintain in their submissions to the courts in Canada that the issue has already been resolved under Canadian law and should not be reopened. They said EnerNorth had chosen to attack the quality of justice only because it had lost the case in Singapore - a jurisdiction it had freely chosen for settlement of any disputes with Oakwell. They said the company had not raised objections during the trial in Singapore and had failed to prove or even establish a "reasonable apprehension" of bias against it.

In its case before the Ontario Court of Appeal, Oakwell's lawyers said EnerNorth had in fact been represented by a lawyer who witnesses said had strong links to the People's Action Party, while Oakwell had been represented by Philip Jeyaretnam, the son of the opposition figure.

They said the case had been "heard before the courts of a country built on foreign investment, with an impeccable reputation for fairness to foreign businesses like EnerNorth."

But Backman, the consultant and author, said the risk for Singapore, regardless of the verdict in Canada, was that foreign companies might become increasingly wary about business transactions in the city-state. If EnerNorth wins, he said by telephone, courts in other countries might also come under pressure not to enforce Singapore legal judgments. "This will only impact on the desire of investors to invest and remain in Singapore," he said.

Singapore

It is Better to be Feared than to be Loved

Why is it the MIW, or at least some of its leaders, are so keen to create political martyrs out of political nobodies, and in the end do more harm than good to the MIW's image? The MIW have already won this round by the ballot but now want to stomp on a political candidate who is down, just to get the message across. They are certainly successful in getting one message across to us, but whether it is the message they intended, I'm not too sure. The original message was perhaps “better be sure of your facts in politics with us” and it became garbled along the way to become “we will destroy all opponents mercilessly, that is the MIW way” by the time it reached Singaporeans.

The Truth About Singapore's Media

A Message from a Media Insider

I've been in contact with someone from inside the media industry and I requested that he/she write a short piece for my blog to tell anyone who visits what it's like to be inside the organisation which has failed us in so many ways during this General Election, and before, and after. There have been many calls for journalists, reporters, cameramen etc. to step up and tell the world what really goes on there, but it's always easier to stand outside a glass house and throw rocks at it, rather than stand beneath its roof and do the same. I can't reveal the name of this person, nor any of his/her particulars, but nevertheless the truth of the message is far more important than the identity behind it. Suffice it to say that the person has had experience in the coverage of the general elections these past few weeks.

I had no illusions about the independence of the local media when I first started my job as a [------] in Singapore. I knew that my work would be edited, and possibly censored for political safety, and I was mostly fine with that - no media channel anywhere in the world is entirely free from some form of editorial trimming, after all.

What I didn't bargain for was individual self-censorship, unspoken policies and rules, and the stoutness with which people swallowed their journalistic dignity and integrity (because it does exist, even strongly, in some places) to toe the party line. Incredible as it seems, reporters in Singapore do have the same fierce pride in their work as reporters anywhere else; I think this is especially evident in sections of the media that don't touch on politics.

But when it comes to political news, particularly something as sensitive as the elections, many of us leave our brains and consciences at home and resign ourselves to doing what we're told and writing what's being dictated. To some extent I appreciate the rationale of this - there really is a very close watch being kept on the media and when we're kept in line it's largely for our own safety.

However, as someone still young and naive and idealistic, it's hard for me to swallow the indignation I feel whenever I see the local media doggedly ignoring its otherwise sharply-honed news sense. Articles and TV programmes are edited to balance out pro-opposition views; awesome camera opportunities - like the opposition rallies - are studiously left out of media coverage; banal and unfair quotes and tactics are highlighted and headlined simply because they are tools of the ruling party.

There are many things journalists see that the eyes of the public are not privy to, and that we would like to report on but can't. Please remember that when you read an article or watch a broadcast that seems particularly, emetically subjective. And help spread the word that a lot of us in the media are sorry that we can't do t