Singapore Anarchists Jam Orchard Road

Singapore Erupts! 

Thousands of angry Singaporeans marched down Orchard Road on Sunday morning to protest FriskoDude and his obnoxious blog which seems to have a thing about "freedom of the press" and "freedom of speech" on their fair island. Some say these issues were resolved decades ago and Western liberals should wise up and get a life.

Not so quick my little darlings. Singapore now permits citizens to hold private meetings without government permission, so long as they don't talk about politics or religion. Singapore now permits its citizens to gather at the officially designated free speech center in a Chinatown park, but they must register in advance with the police, state the purpose of their talk, and are prohibited from using an amplified speaker system. Bullhorns are also against the law. This is what Singapore calls "freedom of speech?"

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore tempered vows to relax freedom of speech and open up society with new rules and regulations on Friday, banning among other things microphones from performances in a free-speech designated "Speakers' Corner".

Casting himself as a cautious reformer, new Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong -- 52-year-old son of founding premier and elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew -- outlined a loosening in social controls in a major policy address on Sunday.

Unlicensed public talks got a green light, so long as they are held indoors and avoid "sensitive subjects" such as race or religion, and activists can hold exhibitions at "Speakers' Corner", a downtown park loosely based on its namesake in London.

But like past reform efforts in a country known as Asia's "nanny state" for pervasive government controls -- from a ban on "Playboy" magazine to heavy-handed state censorship -- the new lighter touch has its own new set of regulations.

All speakers must be Singaporean citizens and speak in the island's four official languages -- English, Mandarin Chinese, Bahasa Malay and Tamil -- and must stay clear of religious topics, a 4-page police statement said on Friday.

Performers at "Speakers' Corner" must register with police, mount exhibitions only between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., not use placards or banners or a "sound amplification device" -- the same rules critics say now stifle political expression at the park.

Only 14 speakers have registered to speak in the grassy downtown corner between January and Aug. 23, the police said -- a fraction of the 400 in a month when it opened in September 2000.

New Freedoms Come With New Rules

Some pundits have also complained to FriskoDude that political dissidents in Singapore are a thing of the past and all have faded away into oblivion. A quick look at Singapore Window turns up some recent news on Chee Soon Juan:

Opposition Leader Wages Lonely Campaign
in US for Greater Freedom

Agence France Presse
June 30, 2004
WASHINGTON

JAILED thrice at home for speaking in public without a license, Singapore opposition leader Chee Soon Juan pounces on any opportunity in the United States to criticize the human rights record and lack of western-style freedom in his highly-developed home country. On a five-month fellowship stint with the US National Endowment for Democracy, a non-profit private group, Chee needled a red-faced Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong on a local political issue at a public forum while the leader was on a visit to Washington last month.

Much to the embarrassment of the host, the Council on Foreign Relations, an irritated Goh flatly refused to answer Chee's charge at the forum that his government was marginalizing minority Muslim Malays in Singapore. At another public forum on the role of America in Asia, Chee asked Singapore's ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh how the United States could help promote press freedom in Singapore.

Since he came to Washington in March, the 49-year-old Singapore Democratic Party chief walks the corridors of the US Congress pressing for democratic reforms in the tiny but wealthy Southeast Asian island nation, where the ruling People's Action Party makes no bones about its conviction that full-blown western-style liberal democracy is not suited for Singaporeans. Chee said he was fighting an uphill battle at home and abroad trying to convince people of the need for democratic reforms in the city state.

"I find it tremendously difficult to get Singapore on the radar screens of governments or NGOs because of some myths that had developed about Singapore to be regarded as a model of success by developing nations," said the US-trained neuropsychologist. "Hong Kong, China, the Middle East and Indonesia are all beginning to cite Singapore as some kind of a model but my message to them is: be careful," he said at a public forum entitled "Singapore: Asia's Standard-Bearer for Authoritarianism?" organized by the New American Foundation, which encourages research on various issues. Chee cited a letter Goh wrote to him rejecting his request for government funds to run a centre promoting democracy.

Referring to a survey by Berlin-based financial watchdog Transparency International, Goh, according to Chee, said in the letter that Singapore was already widely recognized as an open society which practiced transparency and democratic accountability. "This is a myth," Chee said, complaining that public money, including the state-run pension fund, was invested by the government with little transparency and "the use of the death penalty is shrouded in secrecy."

Amnesty International says Singapore is believed to have carried out the highest number of executions per capita in the world since 1994. Chee also questioned Goh's assertion on democratic accountability in Singapore, saying the country arbitrarily arrested and threw people in jail indefinitely without trial under the draconian Internal Security Act. "When you talk about democratic accountability, you must at least have freedom of speech. No protests, no public speeches are allowed without a permit," he said.

Chee has been jailed three times briefly after he tested the government by speaking in public without applying for a permit. He said in terms of media freedom, a 2000 survey by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders group showed Singapore 144th among a list of 166 countries, ranking even lower than Zimbabwe.

On the judiciary, he said the respected International Commission for Jurists had stated that the Singapore leadership had used defamation proceedings to silence opponents and seriously undermined the rule of law. In 2002, Chee was found guilty of defaming Premier Goh and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew over questions he raised during the 2001 general elections concerning what he claimed was Singapore government's 10-billion-dollar loan to Indonesia in 1997. Goh and Lee said the loan was never disbursed and claimed damages, saying Chee's allegations implied they were dishonest.

Chee could be disqualified from running in the next election in 2006 if he loses his appeal. The High Court last year rejected his appeal for a court trial in the defamation case and he was ordered to pay unspecified damages. Chee said the United States, a key ally of Singapore, should use its influence to prod the city state to be more open.

Chee Pleads His Case in Washington

Chee gave a speech last year after receiving an award for his struggle for democracy in Singapore:

What you don't know about Singapore:

Allow me to give you a little bit of the reality of the state of democracy in Singapore. We still have the Internal Security Act (ISA) which allows the Government to arbitrarily arrest citizens and detain them without trial. We had many oppositionists, trade union leaders, journalists and activists imprisoned under the ISA for opposing the ruling PAP. The longest-serving prisoner is Mr Chia Thye Poh who was detained for 23 years without ever given a trial.

All newspapers, TV and radio stations are owned and run by the Government.

Even the foreign press has come under control when it was sued repeatedly or had their circulation curtailed by the Singapore Government.

And as for the labour movement we have one umbrella trade union called the National Trades Union Congress, which is headed by a cabinet minister.

And if all this does not ensure total control by the ruling party, there is the judiciary. I am sure you have heard how Governments leaders continue to take opposition members to court in financially-debilitating lawsuits.

Dr. Chee Speech September 2003

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) also interviewed Dr. Chee in September 2003, when he visited Washington to receive his Defender of Democracy Award.

Dr. Chee Interview with ABC in Washington

Reporters Without Borders is a French organization which issues annual reports on press freedom issues. Here's something about freedom of the internet, always a hot topic in Asia, but especially in China and Singapore:

Reporters Without Border - Singapore Internet Report

And finally, Reporters Without Borders publishes an annual report on freedom of the press around the world, and Singapore ranks down near the bottom, ahead of China but below Zimbabwe:

Reporters Without Borders - Singapore Report 2004

Need to vent? Here's the Yahoo Forum for Singapore:

Yahoo Group Singapore Review