Very Interesting Hypothesis

 


A very interesting hypothesis put forward by this side of paradise...

Much has been written about a Govt agency and a student blog, and the Govt's call to more debate.

I've recently developed a theory. Few months back, an aggregated blog known as Tomorrowwas set up, like what I did sometime ago.

However, guess what? Tomorrow is actually set up by the assistant director of enabling technologies, IDA [Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore], James Seng.

How do I know? Check out Singapore's NIC (Network Information Centre), and enter "tomorrow.sg" into the "Online Whois" field, click Search, and you have your answer.

Who knows, one day, someone authoritative might just come out and say that the Govt is part of the blog collective of Singapore.

To paraphrase the Christian News Service which paraphrase the Borg, "This is the Borg Collective," they said menacingly. "Prepare to be assimilated. We will add your biological and technological distinctives to our own. You will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile."

And already, there are editors who writes for Tomorrow, servicing it, much like the way the Borg collective was serviced.

Resistance is futile!

Strange things are afoot in the Singaporean Blogosphere. Those of you reading and thinking this is mere 'conspiracy theory' just click on the hyper links.

I am really starting to like the hypothesis mentioned above from by this side of paradise.... And if you couple that hypothesis, with what has recently happened to AcidFlask,[a small aside, just how in the name of God did A*Star find out about it? Technorati ?]and a previous article I wrote after the launch of new recently introduced 'infrastructure'.

What have you got?

Paranoia.

What I find especially enlighening are the comments deriding my post left by 'mcbloody' this and bloody that. Enjoy...

Singapore rejects last-ditch appeals

marijuana trafficker to hang Friday
A Singapore man has failed in his last-ditch appeal to avoid being hanged for marijuana trafficking, a civil rights group said on Monday.

Shanmugam Murugesu, 38, received a mandatory death sentence last year after he was caught returning by motorcycle from neighboring Malaysia in August 2003 with one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of marijuana.

"The family of Shanmugam Murugesu received a letter today (Monday) that he will be hanged" early Friday morning, the Think Center civil rights group said in a statement.

Murugesu's children, with the help of their lawyer, pleaded for clemency from the President. It was rejected earlier this month.

Opposition and civic groups had launched a last-minute campaign to save Murugesu. His twin 14-year-old sons, who will become orphaned if Murugesu dies, have been handing out fliers, asking Singaporeans to help save their father.

The Think Center was organizing a vigil for Murugesu on Thursday evening.

Last week, London-based rights group Amnesty International launched an urgent appeal on his behalf.

Amnesty International claims Singapore has the world's highest per capita rate of executions.

In its 2004 annual report, the group said executions in Singapore are "shrouded in secrecy." Singapore rejected the report, saying it was full of "misrepresentations and distortions."

Of 138 people hanged in Singapore in the five years ending January 2004, 110 were convicted of drug offenses, according to the country's Central Narcotics Bureau.

Six death row inmates have been granted clemency since Singapore's independence from Malaysia in 1965, the Straits Times newspaper said Monday .

Under Singaporean law, anyone possessing more than 500 grams (17.64 ounces) of marijuana is presumed to be trafficking and faces death if found guilty.

Singapore's government _ often accused by international critics of civil rights abuses and draconian punishments, such as lashing some criminals across the bare buttocks with a rattan cane _ says its strict laws have helped make it one of Asia's safest, most stable and most prosperous countries.

From The Think Centre...
09 May 2005 by Sinapan Samydorai

The family of Shanmugam Murugesu received a letter today that he will be hanged the coming Friday 13th May 2005. Think Centre calls on our government, the members of parliament, to abandon the use of death penalty.

Let us rise above our feelings of fear and vengeance to seek solutions to drug trafficking and crimes that reflect human dignity and promote justice for all. We call on our government, the members of parliament, to abandon the use of death penalty.

----------------------------
Shanmugam Murugesu will be hanged: 13 May 2005

Think Centre calls for "Silent Vigil" coming Thursday evening, 12 May 2005, at 8 pm, wherever you are for Shanmugam and those on the death-row.


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


Joint Press briefing: Shanmugam Murugesu facing death sentence is it fair & just?
Date: Tomorrow 10th May 2005 Time: 3 pm - 4 pm
Venue: Oxford Hotel
218 Queen Street, Singapore 188549. Tel: 6332 2222

Jointly Organized by Think Centre & M. Ravi
----------------------------
When a court wrongly sentences a person to death,the result is irreversible.

Shanmugam Murugesu is facing the death sentence. Is it fair and just? Is it fair and just to presume a person quilty from the moment of arrest? Are there loopholes in the Misuse of Drugs Act that could result in the execution of an innocent person? Will the President Convene the Constitutional Court?

The death penalty is an act of vengeance that is detrimental to building a civilized society, and demeaning to all of us as citizens. Based on numerous studies, Criminologists agree that the death penalty has no deterrence value. Why then sentences a man to hang for possession of drugs? Is death penalty consistant and appropriate for possession of drugs?

Let us rise above our feelings of fear and vengeance to seek solutions to drug trafficking and crimes that reflect human dignity and promote justice for all. We call on our government, the members of parliament, to abandon the use of death penalty.

In the interim, we endorse a moratorium on the death penalty in Singapore as a fair and moral regarding the death penalty. It gives a chance to re-examine both the purpose of the penalty and its perceived effectiveness, and can save the lives of the condemned.

A sentence of life in prison for the most serious offenses would keep us just as safe. We could offer more help and guidance to troubled kids before they turn to drugs and crime. Instead of investing foolishly in vengeance, we ought to be investing wisely in humanityand human dignity.

Singapore threatens to sue internet dissenter

Copied and pasted from...
By John Burton in Singapore
Published: May 8 2005 17:13 | Last updated: May 8 2005 17:13

A threatened libel suit against a blogger by a Singapore government agency has raised concerns among international press freedom groups that the city-state might be cracking down against dissent on the internet.


A*Star, the city-state's science and technology agency, has set a deadline of Monday for a student who criticised its scholarship system and policies on his web log to make an "unreserved and sincere apology" or else be sued in what would be one of the first such cases in Asia against a blogger.

Blogging and libel laws are also emerging as a key legal issue in the US and Europe.

"Such intimidation could make the country's blogs as timid and obedient as the traditional media," said Paris-based Reporters without Borders, which last year placed Singapore at the bottom of developed countries on press freedom.

Chen Jiahao, a former government scholarship student studying chemical physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has already shut down his blog and apologised to A*Star and its head, Philip Yeo, for "having hosted or made remarks that Mr Yeo felt were defamatory to him and the agency that he leads".

But A*Star said the apology was unsatisfactory since Mr Chen's blog contained "untrue and serious accusations against A*Star, its officers and other parties, which went way beyond fair comment".

International press freedom groups are watching the case since blogs could challenge the Singapore government's tight media controls.

"We are troubled that the government has raised the spectre of costly legal action to chill commentary on the internet," said the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

Government officials have had a successful record of winning libel suits against foreign and domestic media critics in local courts. Singapore's "defamation laws make it relatively easy for some plaintiffs to win", said the US State Department in its latest human rights report on Singapore.

"Threats of defamation actions often persuaded newspapers and others to apologise and pay damages for perceived slights, a situation that prompted general caution in expressing dissent," the report said.

But A*Star defended its libel threat, saying it had "the responsibility to protect its reputation and also that of Singapore".

The government is investigating another blog by a top government scholarship student in the US after he allegedly made racial slurs against Singapore's Indian and Malay minorities. No action has yet been announced in that case.

Blogging has taken on more importance in Singapore as the government recently said it wants to encourage debate. "We want the people to be involved, to discuss, to understand and to have a view," said Lee Hsien Loong, the prime minister, last week

Singapore finally finds a voice in death row protest

 

Around 120 people braved Friday's vigil, but few were willing to be quoted. A woman who printed T-shirts saying 'Highest per capita execution rate in the world' and '400 men and women executed since 1991' admitted she had been terrified to do so.
The government clearly does not want the campaign gathering momentum. The partially state-owned local media ignored the vigil and the police shut down the open mike session just as the first person was getting into his stride .
'We'll be lucky to get anywhere in 10 or even 20 years,' said Samydorai. 'But at least Singaporeans are finally speaking out.'

To read the entire article from The Observer...

Film-maker now under police probe

http://singaporerebel.blogspot.com

12pm, 6 May 2005 - I received a call on my mobile from Assistant Superintendent Chan Peng Kuang from the Central Police Station informing me that the police had obtained a copy of 'Singapore Rebel' and is in the process of "investigation" although he did not disclose on what charge.

In a civil and almost apologetic tone, he asked if we could meet on Tuesday 10 of May. I replied that I was working that day and asked to meet tomorrow morning (7 may 2005) instead. He then replied that he would be overseas and would make time for the "interview" at my convenience. So the date is fixed for the "interview" on Tuesday at 7pm at the Central Police Station on Cantonment Road.

He asked too if the Singapore International Film Festival has acknowledgement slips to verify my submission of 'Singapore Rebel' for the short film competition. And then added another query as to whether other person(s) were involved in the production process. After I replied that both answers were negative, he expressed relief at the answer to his second question, to which I can only venture that his relief stems from the thought that he doesn't need to interview anyone else but me.

'Singapore Rebel' was withdrawn from the SIFF on March 11 after a phone call from its director Lesley Ho. At no point did I hear from the Board of Film Censors or from any department of the Government. This is my first direct contact with the authorities since the withdrawal.

Email me at singapore_rebel@yahoo.com (Need all the advice I can get)

Martyn See

The crackdown is in full swing. So much for letting a hundred flowers bloom. I smell an 'election' coming.

The article below takes you to a trailer of the offending documentary...


The two links below will take you to a trailer of Singapore Rebel. The production quality of these wav. files is in no way representative of the high quality production that the entire documentary meets. This is only a very small trailer and is not the entire documentary. I have no intention of uploading the entire documentary.

The wav. files last approximately 1 minute and 16 seconds in length and you will need to turn up the volume on your PC.

Once you have been taken to the page, click the download options illustrated in this picture....


For those of you WITHOUT broadband click here.

For those of you WITH broadband click here

If you want to read up on the documentary read the article below which was posted on Singabloodypore before, also visit singaporerebel.blogspot.com to learn more..


Tuesday March 22, 2005

A film-maker has withdrawn his documentary about Singapore's leading opposition figure from the city-state's annual film festival, after the government warned him its political content could land him in jail.

Martyn See's short film focuses on Chee Soon Juan, a frequent government critic who was ordered to pay S$500,000 (£160,875) to Singapore's first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, and former leader Goh Chok Tong for defamation during the 2001 elections.

See decided to pull his movie from the Singapore international film festival after the country's censorship board warned him he could be jailed for up to two years or fined if his 26-minute film was screened.

Singapore's the Straits Times reports that the board had also advised festival organisers to remove See's documentary because it was a "party political film." Under Singaporean law, local films that "contain wholly or partly either partisan or biased references to or comments on any political matter" are banned, the paper added.

Despite its strictly controlled media, Singapore has been seeking to promote itself as a centre of Asian arts, with the international film festival one of its cultural highlights. Still, Singapore regularly bans movies, on the grounds that it needs to maintain ethnic and religious harmony in the south-east Asian country of four million.

From the Guardian Newspaper

Well there goes the promotion of Singapore as a centre of Asian arts. And all despite the recent call for a Singaporean Michael Moore by youth and media conference .

"In attendance was Education Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam some speakers referred "to how wacky political websites and show business figures such as film-maker Michael Moore led the way in encouraging turnout among young voters during last year's US presidential elections."

Human rights in the Blogosphere

 

Electronic civil disobedience is not without risk. In both Iran and China, the authorities have increasingly targeted bloggers to stifle dissent. Bloggers are sometimes arrested and sites discussing political or social issues shut down or redirected to entertainment forums. In one recent case highlighted by Reporters sans frontières, an Iranian blogger, Mohamad Reza Abdollahi, was sentenced on appeal to six months in prison and a fine of 1 million rials for supposedly insulting the country's leaders and making anti-government propaganda. Police subsequently arrested his wife, another blogger whom they accused of "defending her husband too openly". Najmeh Oumidparvar, who was four months pregnant, spent 24 days in detention before being released on 26 March.

The initial grace period in which bloggers enjoyed complete freedom while the authorities caught up with the technology has ended, but it is still the easiest and fastest way for activists to spread information and many continue to use them, despite the personal risk involved.

This is one downside; another is the amount of information presented as fact. Blogs are individual expressions of opinion. Where "facts" are cited, they should be treated with healthy scepticism. As long as the reader makes his or her own judgments about the information, the fact that blogs do not purport to provide a balanced view can be refreshing, as there is little risk of a hidden agenda or bias. They also offer an immediate right of reply and the opportunity for others to correct information or to put across an alternative viewpoint immediately.

The Blogosphere provides anyone with access to a computer the opportunity to meet like-minded people and organise activities anywhere in the world. For activists and journalists alike, it is a powerful tool.

This was originally posted on Amnesty International's site.

Think freedom of speech in the blogosphere is only under threat in places like China and Iran, read the post below...

A*Star seeks unreserved apology from blogger

I just read the following and I am rather concerned. What concerns me is that AcidFlask has already removed the ENTIRE blog caustic.soda., all that remains is an apology.

Exactly what does AcidFlask have to do and say, what 'magic' words does he have to utter to get A*Star to back off? A*Star also expects a promise never to do it again. Are we in school? Is AcidFlask to be made an example of, in order to get the rest of us to sit quietly and do as we are told?

Doesn't AcidFlask have a constitutional right to freedom of speech in the first instance? Why are those who are attempting to undermine this right continuing to behave like the aggrieved party? They are demanding that they control what he HAS said and what he WILL say in the future. Does anyone at A*Star have a copy of '1984'?, I suggest you read it then look at your demands.

A*Star's demands are ridiculous, and A*Star looks ridiculous.

My advice to A*Star, is that if you find yourself in a very deep hole the only advice worth listening to is, "Stop Digging". If you don't you are just making the situation worse.

Imagine an "Agency for Science, Technology and Research", being unable to accept criticism and having to respond with threats of legal action. Where in the world could such an agency exist?

The bind moggles.

A*Star seeks unreserved apology from blogger
By Valerie Tan, Channel NewsAsia
Posted: 06 May 2005 2044 hrs
SINGAPORE : Singapore's A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) said Singaporean blogger Chen Jiahao made direct accusations against the agency which were defamatory.

At a news conference on Friday, A*Star said it wanted Chen to retract the statements which it claimed were made on his blog.

A*Star said the post-graduate student made serious accusations that hit at the core of the organisation's integrity.

But it could not comment on what exactly was defamatory due to legal constraints.

The former scholar had since April 26 taken the blog off-line and published an apology.

But A*Star said it wanted the student to apologise unreservedly, retract what he had previously said in his blogs and promise not to do it again.

It said it had given Chen till May 8 to respond and that it had no desire to go to the courts over the issue.

A*Star's Chairman Philip Yeo had also invited Chen for tea to clear the air, and it said the student had responded that he would, when time permits. - CNA/de

Singapore's President Rejected Clemency Appeal

Please take a moment and consider signing the petition....

http://www.petitiononline.com/TCaction/petition.html

Fri 6th May Candlelit Vigil for Shanmugam Murugesu
--------------------------------------------
NOTE FINAL VENUE:
Furama City Centre Hotel,
Canton Room, Level 4,
60 Eu Tong Sen Street, Singapore 059804.
Time: 7 - 10 pm


Dear all,

Singapore's President has rejected a clemency appeal for 38 year old Singaporean Shanmugam Murugesu. He was convicted of cannabis trafficking. Singapore does not set dates for executions, although they are usually carried out on Fridays at dawn. Shanmugam is due to be hanged in the next week or so.

Proponents of Singapore's tough laws against drug trafficking often claim that sending convicted traffickers to the gallows will act as an effective deterrent because drug abuse destroy lives and families,

Fact #1 : Drug abuse is not the only social ill that destroy lives. Addiction to smoking, gambling and alcohol kill as many, if not more, people in Singapore than drug abuse. Should we also prosecute and hang directors of tobaccco companies, casino operators and alcohol maufacturers?

Fact #2 : Drug couriers like Shanmugum often take on such jobs because of economic hardship. Syndicates who want to ship drugs into Singapore often use decoys to distract the police. Shanmugum was likely deployed as such a decoy. At the time when Shanmugum was caught at the causeway, there may have been 4 or 5 more other couriers who had escaped the custom. This is one way in which drugs continue to flow into Singapore.

Fact #3 : Despite the use of the death penalty as a deterrent to would-be-criminals, prison population in Singapore is one of the highest in the world. "Singapore locks away more people than over half the nations of the world, a British survey on prison population shows. For every 100,000 people, 359 are in prison - above the sum total of Cambodia (46), Malaysia (121), Brunei (120) and Indonesia (29). It also exceeds those in developed countries such as Japan (48), France (85), Britain (139) and Australia (116)." (Straits Times, 31 March 2003)

Fact #4 : While we hang small-time drug couriers, the Singapore Government invests in companies owned by Burma's most notorious druglord, Lo Hsing Han.

Burma-Singapore Axis: Globalising the Heroin Trade

Singapore's blood money :
Hanging drug couriers but investing with their suppliers

Fact #5 : Currently, more than 100 countries have abolished the death penalty either in practice or in law. Singapore is one of 25 countries that are still carrying out executions. Not only that, we have the highest per capita rate of executions in the world.
Singapore: High execution rate shrouded in secrecy
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGASA360022004?open&of=ENG-SGP
http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/document.do?id=AA4D3A610F648A3E80256F400047A922

Fact #6 : There is a lack of safeguards in the judicial system to ensure that no innocent men or women should be executed. In an exchange during the final appeal of Malaysian trafficker Vignes Mourthi, when asked by the defence counsel if the public prosecutor was still maintaining that an innocent person be hanged because of legal procedure, Chief Justice Yong Pung How replied, "Yes. The answer is yes." (Today, 27 Sept 2003)

******************************

Men and women are being killed by our Government because the Government says it is good for the rest of us. As Singaporeans or permanent residents who live, work and contribute to the very system that supports this killing, we need to take on more a more active role in promoting, at the very least, a more open debate on the issue of the death penalty.

Singaporeans to gather for Shanmugam Murugesu

Think Centre, with the support of concerned members of civil society and the arts community, is organising a candlelight vigil for Shanmugam Murugesu. He is expected to be hanged on the morning of this day. The evening will involve a series of candlelit music, performances and readings by concerned, non-partisan individuals as an expression of our 3C's:"Compassion", "Care", & "Concern" .

Fri 6th May 2005
Time: 7 – 10 pm
Venue: The Substation arts centre garden,
45 Armenian Street
(Back Entrance by old National Library carpark)

Please come and participate. Admission is free.

This event will hopefully be the start of a public awareness campiagn to get Singaporeans to talk openly about the pros and cons of capital punishment in their country.

Acidflask's Story

Now you know as much as I know...

to Valarie, Ng
More options May 5 (5 hours ago)

Dear Ms. Tan:

I am shocked and indignant that in your CNA Article dated May 4, not only had you written an article who stand was far from neutral, you had made at least one glaring factual error that is completelybunbecoming of any news agency.

I will only address here the error that is relevant to me. For the record that I am a first year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. I am not "pursuing [my] Masters in the States". Given that a quick Google search of my name turns up the correct school and relevant information about my program of study, I cannot believe that you did apparently not even bother to verify such a basic fact about myself before running a story about me.

I mention in passing your errorneous un-compounding of the word "Web Logs" instead of "weblogs", the ambiguous use of the phrase "pull off" and your discourtesy in referring to me by "Chen" and not "Mr. Chen", and other sundry choices of English that have only served to lower my impression of your journalistic standards further.

Perhaps it had not occur to you that your last email was sent at 11pm local time on May 3 (10 am May 4 Singapore time), and that given my examination period begins tomorrow, I was likely that I would be unable to reply to your email in time for your article, especially when you did not mention the urgency of your request? Your colleague Shing Yi had contacted me earlier at about 3 am local time and I had just sent off a reply to her at 11 pm. Since your email came later at 6 am local time, I thought it would be reasonable to assume to reply to you (also at about 11 pm), that by mentioning her contacting me, you would at least have asked her if she had received any reply.

Obviously, this did not happen. While I am aware of time pressures that you may face in compiling news reports, I cannot in any way understand how you have apparently neglected to verify the simple fact of what I was studying here in the United States. It is highly unprofessional of you to have published a falsehood in your mass media, where millions of otherwise innocent viewers have become impressed with wrong information which may serve to affect their impression of the situation at hand. Such actions are tantamount to professional negligence and are highly unbecoming of any journalist from any news agency.

Your preposterous actions have permanently tarnished my impression of ChannelNewsAsia and has significantly lowered my impressions of your journalistic standards. The facts that your errorneous statement was further propagated by your colleague Wong Siew Ying in her own article dated May 5, and that both times such an errorneous statement could have made it through the editorial review process, only serve to reinforce my poor impression of your company.

For the record, here is more or less what I had sent to your colleague Shing Yi. I give you permission to use this information as long as it is reported in a neutral and factually accurate fashion, and subject to the following conditions: that I am not to be quoted directly as making the following points, and that paraphrasing them would be acceptable; that you may mention contacting me as long as it is made clear that I did not solicit the interview, and that my sole purpose in contacting you is purely in the interests of factual accuracy, especially in the light of your errorneous reporting; and that you will apologize either in your personal capacity or as a representative of ChannelNewsAsia for making the errorneous remarks.

If you do not agree to make an apology, then I may be forced to consider legal action.

---

First off, please note that my pseudonym was "AcidFlask" not "Acid Flask", and that the title of my blog was "caustic.soda".

I am a first-year graduate student in the chemical physics PhD program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Until last week, I had a personal blog on my university account, which as far as I understand is not a violation of school policy.

On April 22 (Friday), I received the first email from Mr. Philip Yeo, chairman of A*STAR, dated 5:44 am GMT-5 which notified me that he had earmarked a post on my blog (#442) for legal action. Over the next three days he sent me a total of eleven emails which were of a threatening and insulting nature, demanding that I remove "all" the posts on my blog or face legal action for defaming A*STAR and himself.

Despite writing to him three times seeking clarification by email, he had refused to elaborate on which specific remarks he had found offensive and reiterated his demand to remove "everything" on my blog. Since my end of semester examinations begin this Friday (May 6), I am sure you can appreciate how I was certainly not in the mood to sift through the 400-odd posts that I had written on my blog and edit or remove anything that was potentially defamatory. Therefore the only choice I had to stem the barrage of emails was to take the whole thing off-line. It was only when I wrote to him, informing him of my taking the blog down that he sent me a final (and twelfth) email last Tuesday, saying that his lawyer would follow up with amendments to my apology posted online. To date I have yet to hear from them so I assume the matter is closed.

I cannot reveal the exact details of the communication as Mr. Yeo had also threatened further litigation regarding the disclosure of some of the contents of the exchange.

As for legal aspects, I have been told that this is a thorny issue as it is not clear whether US law or Singapore law applies. The university is supportive of my right have a blog on my university account, but I can afford neither the time nor the money to fight it out in the courts in order to find out how the legal intricacies come together for my case. After all, I am not here in the US neither to experience its wonderful judicial system nor to take extended leave from it in order to fight a legal battle back home.

I would like to emphasize that I still do not know exactly what I had written that he had found offensive, and that Mr. Yeo had demanded that I remove all posts which mentioned either him or A*STAR, whether directly or indirectly, and cease "running [him] down" on my blog. It\ was impossible to satisfy such vague demands except by taking the entire blog down altogether.

Out of over 400 posts on my blog, perhaps ten or so mentioned Mr. Yeo or A*STAR by name. All of these posts were opinionated commentary (based on fact!) on policies made by A*STAR. One of my comments was on A*STAR's scholarship system. A*STAR gives out scholarships to prospective undergraduates to study technical majors both in Singapore and in reputable institutions abroad. Last year A*STAR instituted a new policy requiring their scholars to maintain a 3.8 grade point average (between A- and A average). Having been a scholar at one point in time, I felt that this was unnecessarily draconian and even counterproductive, as this would unduly influence students to pick easy classes over more challenging (and hence more enriching) classes, and said so on my blog.

In his previous position as chairman of the Economic Development Board (EDB), Mr. Yeo had also adopted the same strict stance toward such bond-breakers, labeling them as immoral. I can only speculate as to how his ire could be possibly connected to my decision to break my bond (albeit on a scholarship from a different government agency) and a story in The New Paper in early April about my decision to do so. (http://www.tnp.sg/story/0,4136,86038,00.html)

It may also interest you that this was the first time that Mr. Yeo had ever contacted me, and that I had never denied him the right of reply to the conclusions that I had drawn based on publicly available facts. Also, in its 274 days of existence, my blog had seen a grand total of 44,291 visitors, i.e. 162 visitors/day.

I spoke out because as a taxpayer and citizen, I cared enough about the policies at hand to make reasoned opinions about them, and in particular to point out what I considered to be possibly counterproductive side effects. I considered remarks made by persons such as Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan and MM Lee Kuan Yew earlier this year, urging young Singaporeans to speak out, as encouragement to do so. As a young Singaporean who tried to speak out and received such an intimidating response, I am disappointed and discouraged that Mr. Yeo had not attempted to correct any possible misconceptions that I may have had over the interpretation of publicly available information, deciding instead to threaten to sue me for defamation. I cannot say that such actions have promoted the cause of getting young Singaporeans to speak out.

I have delayed considerations of further blogging until the end of my examinations in mid-May.

A*Star confirms warning to student over defamatory blog

Very sorry, to return to this but suddenly A*Star is upholding the reputation of Singapore. A*Star equals Singapore, I thought PAP equals Singapore. Who is running this place A*Star or PAP? I am confused and feel like we have all been publicly threatened to say 'nice things', 'make funny jokes', 'be infantile' or shut up.

If anyone has a copy of the offending statements, post them here in the comment section anonymously and I will post them on this blog. To hell with only saying nice things, freedom of speech includes the right to offend others and that includes A*Star.

This blog allows for those who feel offended to comment and defend themselves. There is no need to take everyone who says nasty things about you to court just because you can.

By Wong Siew Ying,
Channel NewsAsia


• S'pore student shuts down blog after threat of legal action

SINGAPORE : A*Star (Agency for Science, Technology and Research) confirmed it had warned a Singapore student of legal consequences over a public blog containing defamatory statements.

On Wednesday, Channel NewsAsia broke a story about how the Singapore student, who is pursuing his Masters degree in the United States, shut down his blog after he was threatened with legal action by A*Star.

Chen Jiahao was a former Public Service Commission scholar.

A*Star, in its response to Channel NewsAsia, said it found the public blog contained defamatory statements.

It also said it had the responsibility to protect its reputation and also that of Singapore.

So it warned the blogger of legal consequences unless the objectionable statements were removed and an acceptable apology published.

A*Star also said it welcomed a diversity of views in all media, but the statements made in the blog "went way beyond fair comment". - CNA/de