Far East Economy Review
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Singapore£ªs £¦Martyr,£ª Chee Soon Juan
July/August 2006
By Hugo Restall
Striding into the Chinese restaurant of Singapore£ªs historic Fullerton Hotel, Chee Soon Juan hardly looks like a dangerous revolutionary. Casually dressed in a blue shirt with a gold pen clipped to the pocket, he could pass as just another mild-mannered, apolitical Singaporean. Smiling, he courteously apologizes for being late¡ªeven though it is only two minutes after the appointed time.
Nevertheless, according to prosecutors, this same man is not only a criminal, but a repeat offender. The opposition party leader has just come from a pre-trial conference at the courthouse, where he faces eight counts of speaking in public without a permit. He has already served numerous prison terms for this and other political offenses, including eight days in March for denying the independence of the judiciary. He expects to go to jail again later this year.
Mr. Chee does not seem too perturbed about this, but it drives Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong up the wall. Asked about his government£ªs persecution of the opposition during a trip to New Zealand last month, Mr. Lee launched into a tirade of abuse against Mr. Chee. ¡ùHe£ªs a liar, he£ªs a cheat, he£ªs deceitful, he£ªs confrontational, it£ªs a destructive form of politics designed not to win elections in Singapore but to impress foreign supporters and make himself out to be a martyr,¡ì Mr. Lee ranted. ¡ùHe£ªs deliberately going against the rules because he says, £¦I£ªm like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I want to be a martyr.£ª¡ì
Coming at the end of a trip in which the prime minister essentially got a free ride on human rights from his hosts¡ªNew Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark didn£ªt even raise the issue¡ªthis outburst showed a lack of self-control and acumen. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the man who many believe still runs Singapore and who is the current prime minister£ªs father, has said much the same things about Mr. Chee¡ª¡ùa political gangster, a liar and a cheat¡ì¡ªbut that was at home, and in the heat of an election campaign.
Mr. Chee smiles when it£ªs suggested that he must be doing something right. ¡ùEvery time he says something stupid like that, I think to myself, the worst thing to happen would be to be ignored. That would mean we£ªre not making any headway,¡ì he agrees.
But one charge made by the government does stick: Mr. Chee is not terribly concerned about election results. Which is just as well, because his Singapore Democratic Party did not do very well in the May 6 polls. It would be foolish, he suggests, for an opposition party in Singapore to pin its hopes on gaining one, or perhaps two, seats in parliament. He is aiming for a much bigger goal: bringing down the city-state£ªs one-party system of government. His weapon is a campaign of civil disobedience against laws designed to curtail democratic freedoms.
¡ùYou don£ªt vote out a dictatorship,¡ì he says. ¡ùAnd basically that£ªs what Singapore is, albeit a very sophisticated one. It£ªs not possible for us to effect change just through the ballot box. They£ªve got control of everything else around us.¡ì Instead what£ªs needed is a coalition of civil society and political society coming together and demanding change¡ªa color revolution for Singapore.
So far Mr. Chee doesn£ªt seem to be getting much, if any traction. While many Singaporeans don£ªt particularly like the PAP£ªs arrogant style of government, the ruling party has succeeded in depoliticizing the population to the extent that anybody who presses them to take action to make a change is regarded with resentment. And in a climate of fear¡ªMr. Chee lost his job as a psychology lecturer at the national university soon after entering opposition politics¡ªa reluctance to get involved is hardly surprising. -
Why is all this oppression necessary in a peaceful and prosperous country like Singapore where citizens otherwise enjoy so many freedoms? Mr. Chee has his own theory that the answer lies with strongman Lee Kuan Yew himself: ¡ùWhy is he still so afraid? I honestly think that through the years he has accumulated enough skeletons in his closet that he knows that when he is gone, his son and the generations after him will have a price to pay. If we had parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask questions, I think he is actually afraid of something like that.¡ì
That raises the question of whether Singapore deserves its reputation for squeaky-clean government. A scandal involving the country£ªs biggest charity, the National Kidney Foundation, erupted in 2004 when it turned out that its Chief Executive T.T. Durai was not only drawing a $357,000 annual salary, but the charity was paying for his first-class flights, maintenance on his Mercedes, and gold-plated fixtures in his private office bathroom.
The scandal was a gift for the opposition, which naturally raised questions about why the government didn£ªt do a better job of supervising the highly secretive NKF, whose patron was the wife of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (she called Mr. Durai£ªs salary ¡ùpeanuts¡ì). But it had wider implications too. The government controls huge pools of public money in the Central Provident Fund and the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., both of which are highly nontransparent. It also controls spending on the public housing most Singaporeans live in, and openly uses the funds for refurbishing apartment blocks as a bribe for districts that vote for the ruling party. Singaporeans have no way of knowing whether officials are abusing their trust as Mr. Durai did.
It gets worse. Mr. Durai£ªs abuses only came to light because he sued the Straits Times newspaper for libel over an article detailing some of his perks. Why was Mr. Durai so confident he could win a libel suit when the allegations against him were true? Because he had done it before. The NKF won a libel case in 1998 against defendants who alleged it had paid for first-class flights for Mr. Durai. This time, however, he was up against a major bulwark of the regime, Singapore Press Holdings; its lawyers uncovered the truth.
Singaporean officials have a remarkable record of success in winning libel suits against their critics. The question then is, how many other libel suits have Singapore£ªs great and good wrongly won, resulting in the cover-up of real misdeeds? And are libel suits deliberately used as a tool to suppress questioning voices?
The bottling up of dissent conceals pressures and prevents conflicts from being resolved. For instance, extreme sensitivity over the issue of race relations means that the persistence of discrimination is a taboo topic. Yet according to Mr. Chee it is a problem that should be debated so that it can be better resolved. ¡ùThe harder they press now, the stronger will be the reaction when he£ªs no longer around,¡ì he says of Lee Kuan Yew.
The paternalism of the PAP also rankles, especially since foreigners get more consideration than locals. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund will hold their annual meeting in Singapore this fall, and have been trying to convince the authorities to allow the usual demonstrations to take place. The likely result is that international NGO groups will be given a designated area to scream and shout. ¡ùSo we have a situation here where locals don£ªt have the right to protest in their own country, while foreigners are able to do that,¡ì Mr. Chee marvels. Likewise, Singaporeans can£ªt organize freely into unions to negotiate wages; instead a National Wages Council sets salaries with input from the corporate sector, including foreign chambers of commerce.
All these tensions will erupt when strongman Lee Kuan Yew dies. Mr. Chee notes that the ruling party is so insecure that Singapore£ªs founder has been unable to step back from front-line politics. The PAP still needs the fear he inspires in order to keep the population in line. Power may have officially passed to his son, Lee Hsien Loong, but even supporters privately admit that the new prime minister doesn£ªt inspire confidence.
During the election, Prime Minister Lee made what should have been a routine attack on multiparty democracy: ¡ùSuppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I£ªm going to spend all my time thinking what£ªs the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters£ª votes, how can I solve this week£ªs problem and forget about next year£ªs challenges?¡ì But of course the ominous phrases ¡ùbuy votes¡ì and ¡ùfix them¡ì stuck out. That is the kind of mistake, Mr. Chee suggests, Lee Sr. would not make.
¡ùHe£ªs got a kind of intelligence that would serve you very well when you put a problem in front of him,¡ì he says of the prime minister. ¡ùBut when it comes to administration or political leadership, when you really need to be media savvy and motivate people, I think he is very lacking in that area. And his father senses it as well.¡ì
However, the elder Mr. Lee£ªs death¡ªhe is now 82¡ªis a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. Another big factor is how civil society is able to use new technologies to bypass PAP control over information and free speech. The government has tried to stifle political filmmaking, blogging and podcasting. Singapore Rebel, a 2004 film about Mr. Chee by independent artist Martyn See, was banned but is widely available on the Internet.
Meanwhile, pressure for Singapore to remain competitive in the region has sparked debate about the government£ªs dominant role in the economy. Can a top-down approach promote creativity and independent thinking? The need for transparency and accountability also means that Singapore will have to change. That is the source of Mr. Chee£ªs optimism in the face of all his setbacks: ¡ùI realize that Singapore is not at that level yet. But we£ªve got to start somewhere. And I£ªm prepared to see this out, in the sense that in the next five, 10, 15 years, time is on our side. We need to continue to organize and educate and encourage. And it will come.¡ì
He doesn£ªt dwell on his personal tribulations, but mentions in passing selling his self-published books on the street. That is his primary source of income to feed his family, along with the occasional grant. As to the charge of wanting to be a martyr, once he started dissenting, he found it impossible to stop in good conscience. ¡ùThe more you got involved, the more you found out what they£ªre capable of, it steels you, so you say, £¦No, I will not back down.£ª It makes you more determined.¡ì
Perhaps it£ªs in his genes. One of Mr. Chee£ªs daughters is old enough that she had to be told that her father was going to prison. She stood up before her class and announced, ¡ùMy papa is in jail, but he didn£ªt do anything wrong. People have just been unfair to him.¡ì
Mr. Restall is editor of the REVIEW. -
Title : FEER required to comply with conditions for offshore newspaper: govt
By :
Date : 03 August 2006 1859 hrs (SST)
URL : http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/222903/1/.html
The government has notified the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) that it will have to comply with conditions required of offshore newspapers under Section 23 (3) of the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act.
From September 11 this year, FEER will have to appoint a legal representative in Singapore to deal with any lawsuits that may arise against the publisher.
It will also have to post a security deposit of S$200,000.
But there will be no change to FEER's current circulation cap of 10,000 copies.
This change is to correct an anomaly for FEER, which currently does not have to comply with conditions for offshore newspapers.
It follows the FEER's move from a weekly to a monthly publication in 2004.
But FEER is still a declared foreign newspaper, defined as one engaging in the domestic politics of Singapore.
K Bhavani, Press Secretary to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, says it was an administrative oversight not to have subjected the news magazine to the same conditions required for declared foreign newspapers.
She adds that the conditions for offshore newspapers are not something new.
Several offshore newspapers have already posted the security bond and appointed representatives in Singapore.
The FEER was gazetted as a declared foreign newspaper on 26 December 1987 for interfering in the domestic politics of Singapore.
Subsequently, the FEER was also classified as an offshore newspaper following the amendment to the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act on 30 August 1990, and was subjected to the conditions under the Act.
The government has also reviewed the exempt status of offshore newspapers circulating in Singapore as a result of changes in the media scene.
It has notified four publications - the International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Newsweek and TIME - that the exemption granted to them will be lifted when their current permits expire.
This means they will then have to appoint a legal representative in Singapore and post a bond of S$200,000.
The government says these publications now regularly report on political issues in the region and Singapore, and have significant circulations here.
Since 1990, some offshore newspapers were exempted from certain provisions under the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act before they were permitted to circulate in Singapore.
But the Minister may allow declared foreign newspapers, defined as those engaging in the domestic politics of Singapore, to continue circulation in the country.
This approval may also be granted subject to conditions.
The Ministry of Communications, Information and the Arts says the Newspaper and Printing Presses Act serves to reinforce the government's consistent position that it is a privilege and not a right for foreign newspapers to circulate in Singapore.
It adds that they do so as foreign observers of the local scene and should not interfere in the domestic politics of Singapore. - CNA/ch -
I believe, a Standing Ovation would be appropriate for such detailed revelations!
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FEER is very brave to reject
apology demand by Lees04 Aug 06 FEER rejects Lees' demands.
Ths issue is the above article appeared on FEER. -
FEER did real news reporting and jounarlism (unlike some junk set-up serving as a goverment mouthpiece in the name of jounarlism; theres nothing to apologise for.
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what is singapore coming to...
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Double Standards seems to be a typical characteristic of the POWER OF ONE - one for ourselves and another for foreigners - whether good or bad.
ChannelNewsAsia has unabashedly reported on political events, writing news articles and soliciting comments from political observers to the events occurring in other countries within this region and further away.
Why should ChannelNewsAsia be given this privilege, while other foreign news agencies are restricted from reporting on the Singapore Political scene ? -
I thought FEER was dead...
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Originally posted by lionnoisy:
[b]FEER is very brave to reject
apology demand by Lees04 Aug 06 FEER rejects Lees' demands.
Ths issue is the above article appeared on FEER.[/b]
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RSF slams Govt for intimidating foreign press
AP
7 Aug 06
Reporters Without Borders (Reporteurs Sans Frontier) has condemned Singapore for imposing conditions on five international publications in a move that the media watchdog says amounts to pressure for self-censorship.
The statement from the group came after Singapore's Information Ministry announced that the five would be classified as "offshore newspapers," meaning they must appoint legal representation and post a 200,000 Singapore dollar (US$127,173; ?98,780) security deposit in case any lawsuits arise.
"The authorities are looking for effective ways, including fear of prosecution and heavy fines, to intimidate these publications into censoring themselves," the worldwide press freedom organization said. "This is the latest threat against the foreign media, which are the only means of reporting independently on political and economic events in the country since the local press is controlled by the government."
The Far Eastern Economic Review was singled out by the ministry, saying it had until Sept. 11 to meet the conditions. The other four publications - International Herald Tribune, Financial Times, Newsweek and Time - were operating under an exemption to the terms of the newspaper act and will have those exemptions lifted when their current permits expire.
The ministry noted in a statement this week that "it is a privilege, and not a right, for foreign newspapers to circulate in Singapore. They do so as foreign observers of the local scene and should not interfere in the domestic politics of Singapore."
No direct reason was given for the reclassifications, but the statement noted that the latter four publications "regularly report on political issues in the region and Singapore."
The move came after a recent interview in the Far Eastern Economic Review with opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, who the magazine called a national "martyr" because of the many lawsuits against him.
Singapore has a low tolerance for criticism and tightly restricts media and political speech. Ruling party leaders have successfully sued several opposition politicians and journalists for defamation over the years. They say they sue to protect their reputations.
The Economist, International Herald Tribune, Bloomberg, Far Eastern Economic Review and the then-Asian Wall Street Journal - since renamed The Wall Street Journal Asia - have paid large fines or had their circulation restricted in lawsuits brought by Singapore's ruling party stalwarts.
Note: Reporters Without Borders ranked Singapore 140th out of 167 countries in its 2005 worldwide press freedom index. -
the true reason of put more pressure on FEER?
read this
on the same issue :12 Jul 06
Singapore’s ‘Martyr,’ Chee Soon Juan
July/August 2006,fr the Editor of FEERIn Confucian thought, the dynasty fell when heaven withdrew its mandate, or tianming. The Greeks, on the other hand, attributed the end of a reign to hamartia, a tragic flaw within the ruler himself. In many dramas this was the sin of arrogance, hubris. Perhaps Asian politics are becoming more Greek, because looking around the region it seems like much of the present instability could easily have been avoided if politicians had approached their callings in public service with a modicum of humility.
tian ming--order of heaven
Nowhere is that more apparent than in Taiwan. President Chen Shui-bian entered office six years ago on a wave of disgust with the Kuomintang’s corruption and oppression of native Taiwanese. But immediately he created an “imperial presidency” that simply adopted the methods of the KMT, using the power of office to line his family’s pockets and intimidating critics in the opposition and media. Even Mr. Chen’s supporters like former President Lee Teng-hui are now calling for his resignation. As Jonathan Adams writes in this issue, the political turmoil is contributing to a crisis of confidence in Taiwan.
Similarly in Seoul, as Balbina Hwang reports, President Roh Moo Hyun adopted a domineering approach to politics, squandering the goodwill of the electorate so that the opposition Grand National Party won a landslide victory in nationwide elections in May. In Thailand, too, Thaksin Shinawatra badly miscalculated the degree to which overwhelming popularity among the rural poor gave him the right to ride roughshod over his critics. While there were always powerful interests lined up against him, as Pichit LikitkijsomboonÂ’s analysis shows, he ultimately handed his enemies the means with which to defeat him.
Pride went before a fall in East Timor, too, as President Mari Alkatiri tried to settle old scores by sacking a third of the army. Lin NeumannÂ’s essay describes how the young nation is now at the brink of collapse as a result. And as my colleague Colum Murphy writes, MalaysiaÂ’s Mahathir Mohamad seems hell-bent on tearing UMNO apart yet again by undermining his successor, Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi, for showing insufficient respect for some of his ill-advised policies.
And finally to Singapore, which maintains a façade of stability by keeping a tight lid on disrespect for PAP authority. During my interview with opposition leader Chee Soon Juan, I was impressed by the bravery of a true public servant who suffers a stream of abuse and persecution from the Lee family government. But the more Lee Jr. insists that Mr. Chee is a liar, a cheat, a crook, the more distasteful his hubris becomes.
H.R.
hubris--Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance
He means LHL is not a good servant,but CSJ is.This is too much. -
Originally posted by lionnoisy:
lion,
the true reason of put more pressure on FEER?
read this
on the same issue :12 Jul 06
Singapore’s ‘Martyr,’ Chee Soon Juan
[b]July/August 2006,fr the Editor of FEER
tian ming--order of heaven
hubris--Overbearing pride or presumption; arrogance
He means LHL is not a good servant,but CSJ is.This is too much.[/b]
I agree the tonality of this article is a little bit too extreme, and probably such an article should not be published in a magazine that wants to give a fair and reliable portrayal of crucial issues. Well, of course, that only holds true if this was a main article in the magazine; if it were merely a letter to the editor, I see the value of practicing freedom of speech, but I at least hope (I haven't seen the real context) that there is a counterbalancing article to this on the same page; Economist usually does this. And I don't think CSJ is a very good public servant - in fact, last I recalled he wasn't any at all
- but I would at least agree with the part that LHL is not a very good public servant either, and certainly not LKY now. (although LKY was a real public servant when he was still a genuine socialist.) But either way, it is still not justified to reduce the circulation of the ENTIRE magazine because of ONE errant reporter.
the (disenchanted) pikamaster -
nice comprehensive articles. It really broaden up my perspective though the credibility of it is a little doubtable since most are abstract frm Chee who is very anti PAP
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isnit the PAP anti-chee soon juan too? so wat says you about their 'credibility'.
everyone has got a stand. its what they bring across that makes a difference. you are born with a brain have you? can you judge for your self what is right and what is wrong?