Singapore Day - Protest in New York

Desmond Yen has been in touch with me to help publicise a protest he intends to hold in New York on the 21st of April. I have included extracts from the emails I have received. Desmond asks that if you are in the area and would like to join him in a protest against the ongoing defamation case and banning of the Far Eastern Economic Review in Singapore, then get in touch with him directly via the email provided.

If you wish to gain access to the events you will need to first of all register.

update Thursday 12th April 2007 - the event will now be held in New York City’s Wollman Rink in Central Park on APR 21 ]

Hi - have you heard about Singapore Day in NYC on APR 21? It will be at Bryant Park.

www.singaporeday.sg

I plan to be there and protest Singapore's censuring of the Far Eastern Economic Review, by handing out copies of articles. I hope you will publicise this event and encourage people to come and ask some tough questions to the Singapore government heads that will be there.

freespeechsingapore@gmail.com

I will help to coordinate if anyone else would like to join me. Please note this will be a peaceful, non-violent protest meant to educate people about free press and free expression rights in Singapore.

I want to thank you for the information you post on your site. You are quite courageous to challenge the structures of power in Singapore.

Regards,

Desmond

Relevant Articles:
FEER and Singapore
Reporters Without Borders' 2007 Singapore Annual Report
The Geopolitics of Asian Cyberspace
Feer to appeal against court decision to proceed with suit
FEER fails in attempt to move defamation case out of Singapore
Magazine, prime minister face off in court
The FEER Article that Caused Offence

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FEER and Singapore

Access at the Washington Post is restricted but thankfully someone at SammyBoy's forum has posted it.
March 26, 2007; Page A14

Our sister publication, the Far Eastern Economic Review, has been defending itself against a lawsuit in Singapore after it published an article last year on opposition leader Chee Soon Juan. So we hope you'll forgive us if we take some pride that the Review has now been honored by its peers for its journalism.

Review Editor Hugo Restall received first place in the magazine category of the annual Human Rights Press Awards [pdf], organized by the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club and Amnesty International. Among the attributes the judges look for is "courage on the part of the journalists or publisher." The monthly Review is published by Review Publishing Company Ltd., a subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co., which also publishes this newspaper.

In Singapore, reporting on the political opposition carries risks, as virtually every Western publication that circulates in the city state has been the subject of a lawsuit or been threatened with one. The Review and Mr. Restall are being sued by Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding Prime Minister who is now Minister Mentor, and his son, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, who claim the article on Mr. Chee defamed them. The Review is also banned in Singapore, where it is a criminal offense to subscribe to the magazine or to import or reproduce it for distribution. The Review is defending itself against the defamation claims.

The Review's award is a rebuke to Singapore's attempt to silence anyone who reports on the political opposition and is especially welcome support for a vigorous and free press in Asia.

And here is a CNN news report on the issue of the lawsuit.



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Singapore court rejects Far Eastern Economic Review's bid to have defamation suit dropped

The Associated Press
Thursday, February 22, 2007

SINGAPORE: The Far Eastern Economic Review has failed to convince a Singapore court to throw out defamation lawsuits filed against it by two of the Southeast Asian city-state's leaders, the magazine's lawyer said Thursday.

Review Publishing Company Ltd. and Hugo Restall, the Review's editor, were sued for defamation by Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Lee Kuan Yew, in August last year over an article about a prominent Singapore opposition activist.

Peter Low, the two defendants' lawyer in Singapore, said they had sought to question the authority of the city-state to hear the lawsuits, but were rejected in a judgment issued Wednesday. Low declined to comment further, saying he was awaiting instructions from his clients.

Because the Review is a Hong-Kong-based monthly which does not have any employees in Singapore, the defendants challenged the right of the Singapore court to enforce damages outside of the city-state, as well as the way the Lees served their legal papers on the two parties overseas.

Judicial Commissioner Sundaresh Menon turned down the magazine's appeal, writing in his judgment that it was clear that the Lees were limiting their claim for damages to Singapore and that the legal papers had been served on the magazine in an appropriate manner.

In the Review article that the Lees say defamed them, Restall wrote about the opposition Singapore Democratic Party's secretary general Chee Soon Juan's campaign for more democratic freedoms in the tightly controlled city-state and how the ruling party has sued a number of opposition politicians.

Singapore's government later banned the Review, which has more than 1,000 subscribers in Singapore, because it did not appoint a legal representative and pay a 200,000 Singapore dollar (US$126,150; €99,430) security bond — new requirements that are unrelated to the lawsuit, but that the Review has called unjustified.

Singapore's leaders have drawn criticism over several successful defamation suits in past years against journalists and political opponents. The leaders say they have sued to defend their personal and professional reputations.

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Singapore