Chee's trial for speaking in public begins tomorrow
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Chee's trial for speaking in public begins tomorrow
26 Nov 07
Dr Chee Soon Juan will be back in court tomorrow to face charges for speaking in public with a permit. Mr Yap Keng Ho is the other defendant.
The two men are charged for speaking at the Woodlands MRT Station on 8 Apr 06 during the elections period. This is the second of a total of eight charges.
In Nov last year Dr Chee, Mr Yap and Mr Gandhi Ambalam were convicted of a similar charge for speaking at the Yishun town centre, also during the election period. The three served prison sentences of five weeks, ten days and three weeks respectively.
In all the eight incidents Dr Chee was selling the SDP's newspaper, The New Democrat, with party members and supporters in the run up to the general elections held in May 06.
The defendants will make the case, as they did in the previous trial, that the charges are politically motivated and that the police, as with cases involving political issues, are acting at the behest of the PAP Government.
The courts did not want to consider this argument even though the defendants have evidence that the police allow PAP and its affiliated organisations to conduct political activities in public while prohibiting opposition and NGO groups to do likewise.
Also street vendors often verbally advertise their wares to potential buyers. And yet when the SDP does the same, it is prosecuted. The only difference is that Dr Chee is advertising and selling The New Democrat which focuses on political issues.
But the rule of law and the Constitution categorically states that every citizen must be treated equally under the law. To prosecute the Dr Chee and Mr Yap for acts that other citizens widely and openly conduct is discrimination
Worse, the discrimination is against the PAP's opponents – and during the elections to boot where parties are trying to reach out to the electorate.
Without the ability to effectively communicate with supporters during election time especially when the media is owned and run by the PAP Government, how are opposition parties going to succeed at the polls?
The courts have, however, repeatedly ignored such arguments.
The hearing will take place at Subordinate Court No. 15 at 9:30 am tomorrow.
http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articleWoodlandsMRT_trial.html -
The law being abused to punish Dr. Chee
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Please read the SDP website extract below on Dr. Chee's persecution yet again.
This is another instance of the dictatorial Singapore Government blatantly misusing the law to silence dissent. In cases where there are multiple charges which are related and similar, the court should hear all cases at a single trial, not hear one charge at a time and try the person over and over again after lengthy intervals in between.
This way of trying the first charge, sending the defendants to jail; then after the defendants have served sentence and several months or years later, try them on another charge, send them to jail again; then wait several months or years for the next trial, consecutively for 8 charges is unjust and deliberately cruel. It is against normal criminal procedure. When the charges are similar in nature, the proper, decent and fair procedure is to try all cases at one time, and deliver a fair verdict for all at once, so the defendants can serve their sentences and be free. With what the government is doing, these 2 defendants are going have to have these impending trials hovering over their heads for a very long period of time! This is neither just nor legal. It is plain and simple illegal!
I hope the free world is watching and reading my blog to see the depths to which this administration will go, unashamedly to silence dissent by misusing the law.
Sylvia Lim of the Workers Party and Nominated MP. You are a lawyer. What are you doing about this blatant misuse of the law before your very eyes.
People of Singapore and the free world. Do not let this government get away with this misuse of the law before your very eyes. Stand up now. State your protest.
The free world if you are watching. Please help these Singaporeans whose rights are being trampled on.
Gopalan Nair
http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/2007/11/law-being-abused-to-punish-dr-chee.html -
becoming stale news
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if the law is there, and you purposely go and tell everyone that you are going to break the law, then go do it in front of police officers, you bloody deserve to kena arrested, and prosecuted...
if you are not happy with the law, do the correct thing and bring it up during parliament.. get support from the ground... petition the MP to bring it up..
oh.. i forgot.. he has no support from the ground... -
Sometimes a high acquittal rate is good. Bring back the jury system.Originally posted by the Bear:if the law is there, and you purposely go and tell everyone that you are going to break the law, then go do it in front of police officers, you bloody deserve to kena arrested, and prosecuted...
if you are not happy with the law, do the correct thing and bring it up during parliament.. get support from the ground... petition the MP to bring it up..
oh.. i forgot.. he has no support from the ground... -
And what is Gopalan Nair himself doing about it? He's a lawyer right?
SDP supporters. Sheesh. -
Bear Bear really hates sdp hor
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The ending of the trial will be same as always..... he kena fine, he refuse to pay, he kena free Makan inside queenstown, he complaint about prison food, he comes out 2 weeks later thinking he is a Martyr......
If only 4D & ToTo is just as predicable..... -
unfortunately, like the asshats in MDA, people are laughing at him, not with him...
btw, i hate the SDP for ruining the opposition in singaporeOriginally posted by hloc:
The ending of the trial will be same as always..... he kena fine, he refuse to pay, he kena free Makan inside queenstown, he complaint about prison food, he comes out 2 weeks later thinking he is a Martyr......
If only 4D & ToTo is just as predicable..... -
Bear bear hate SDP but I don't. I used to think all opposition have their own believes. But some with links with SDP look like they are now becoming an opposition to opposition, taking on both PAP and WP at the same time.
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But some with links with SDP look like they are now becoming an opposition to opposition, taking on both PAP and WP at the same time.
If these people really hate PAP and WP so much, why not come up with a strategy to set PAP and WP against each other in order to weaken both?
And by this date, certain members of the Milner Group and of the British Conservative government had reached the fantastic idea that they could kill two birds with one stone by setting Germany and Russia against one another in Eastern Europe.
In this way they felt that the two enemies would stalemate one another, or that Germany would become satisfied with the oil of Rumania and the wheat of the Ukraine.
http://yamaguchy.netfirms.com/cikkek/anglo_12b.html
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mark_jones/appeasement.htm
http://www.agitprop.org.au/lefthistory/1948_falsifiers_of_history.php -
CJS doesn't seems to understand that......Originally posted by the Bear:unfortunately, like the asshats in MDA, people are laughing at him, not with him...
btw, i hate the SDP for ruining the opposition in singapore
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Laws are meant to be broken, if every citizen is law abiding, then no need to have law at all.Originally posted by the Bear:if the law is there, and you purposely go and tell everyone that you are going to break the law, then go do it in front of police officers, you bloody deserve to kena arrested, and prosecuted...
if you are not happy with the law, do the correct thing and bring it up during parliament.. get support from the ground... petition the MP to bring it up..
oh.. i forgot.. he has no support from the ground... -
what kinda warped logic is that???Originally posted by t_a_s:Laws are meant to be broken, if every citizen is law abiding, then no need to have law at all. -
Let me guess what will happen:
1. Chee announce court date.
2. Chee apply to court for foreign lawyers, saying he can't find local lawyers.
3. Court gives Chee time to find lawyer.
4. Chee purposely sits on his ass.
5. Chee thinks of ways to slam the PAP in Int'l media.
6. Chee ask courts to give him more time.
7. Court gives Chee more time.
8. Chee sits on his ass, do nothing.
9. Court refuses to prolong more time for Chee to find lawyer.
10. Chee whines like a baby.
11. Chee found guilty.
12. Chee whines like a baby.
13. Chee whines like a baby.
14. Chee whines like a baby.
15. Chee whines like a baby.
16. Chee jumps at next chance for public protests.
It's the same old pathetic publicity crap that Chee is going to pull. The courts should just throw him in jail and throw away the keys. He is a bloody waste of taxpayers money. -
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So it seems most S'porean already read CJS script for the trial......
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Well, your $$ will go to feeding him in jail? What are you gonna say next? Let him hang or turn him loose? I prefer the latter.Originally posted by GPSg:It's the same old pathetic publicity crap that Chee is going to pull. The courts should just throw him in jail and throw away the keys. He is a bloody waste of taxpayers money. -
Witness might not have called police if SDP event "had a roof"
27 Nov 07
The trial involving Dr Chee Soon Juan and Mr Yap Keng Ho, in which the two men are being charged for speaking in public without a permit, commenced today.
The first witness, Mr Loh Zhen Hong, for the prosecution took the stand. He testified that he had called the police when he saw "SDP members giving out speeches and newspapers" at the Woodlands MRT station on 8 Apr 06.
A police corporal at that time who was off-duty (he left the force in February this year), Mr Loh informed his colleagues to check if the SDP had a permit.
Upon cross-examination, the witness said that he "felt somebody was breaking the law" although he couldn't remember which law.
"What I know is that to have a speech, speakers and banners, you need a permit."
He testified that it was unlikely that the SDP's activity had a permit.
Asked by Mr Yap, who is acting-in-person, if he knew that the period was close to elections in 2006, Mr Loh replied yes but said that he had never been to an election rally.
Asked if he had come across other people promoting and selling products (such as credit cards) along Singapore streets (such as Orchard Road), the witness replied in the affirmative.
Question: Did you think they had a permit?
Answer: Yes.
Question: Why?
Answer: Because they have a booth. SDP's did not have a booth, no roof.
Question: So if there's a roof, you think that it's legal?
Answer: Yes.
Mr Loh added that he might not have called his police colleagues if the SDP had a roof at their event.
Dr Chee, who is also acting-in-person, then asked the witness that if he saw other people talking and selling products without a roof, would he call the police?
Mr Loh said yes.
Dr Chee then asked the witness if he had seen hawkers and street vendors selling and verbally promoting their ware "without roofs", to which Mr Loh said no.
Dr Chee offered to show the witness video footage of such people. But the judge, Ms Jasvinder Kaur, said that it was not necessary.
Dr Chee argued that it was important for the defence to show that the police were selectively prosecuting the SDP when it was commonplace for Singaporeans to similarly make a verbal pitch for the items they were selling. (Think salesman demonstrating the Magi-Mop or Non-Stic Pan or Miracle Wax.)
Why should the SDP be singled out when hawkers do it all the time, Dr Chee queried?
The judge insisted that the video could not be shown as it was irrelevant to the case.
The second witness, Senior Investigating Officer Charles Soon, then took the stand during which a recording of the defendants at the MRT station was played in court.
The hearing was then adjourned and will resume tomorrow at Subordinate Court 7.
http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/articleWoodlandsMRT_trial1.html -
http://www.singaporedemocrat.org/elections.html
The Tuth About The Election System
Elections
In the absence of genuinely free and fair elections, the act of voting becomes a treacherous impostor of democracy. In Singapore, the Elections Department is under the purview of the Prime MinisterÂ’s Office. Because it conducts its business largely away from public scrutiny, many are as convinced of its impartiality as they would be the act of a ventriloquist over the radio.
For instance, the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee redraws the boundaries and then submits its report to the cabinet for approval. The opposition and the public are not consulted, and the report bypasses parliament. Changes are announced only shortly before the elections. As a result, constituencies that showed strong support for the opposition party have undergone major surgery. These areas have either been redistributed to other PAP strongholds or wholly absorbed into GRCs.
Violations of the Parliamentary Elections Act (PEA) by the PAP are never acted upon. In the 1997 elections, several PAP ministers entered polling stations, which they clearly had no authority to do. Under the PEA, no unauthorised persons are allowed to loiter within 200 meters of any voting centre. Yet election officials did not attempt to enforce the rule. Worse, the Attorney General declined to prosecute, saying that the ministers were inside the polling centre—as opposed to loitering on the outside—and, hence, not in breach of any regulation. Complaints and reports about ballot papers being folded together (which should be impossible, because each voter is required to fold his or her voting paper and place it individually into the boxes), the number of ballot papers exceeding the number of registered voters, ballots being sealed in the boxes before polling commenced, ballot boxes not being sealed in the presence of opposition candidates and their agents, and ballot boxes taken to centres outside of the constituency for counting all went unheeded.
The official campaign period is limited to eight days. The ruling party meanwhile enjoys the adoration of the media it controls and freely uses the publicity to introduce and generate support for its candidates months in advance of the election. Under the British system, the prime minister is empowered to select the election date. In Singapore, the end of the year has been the period favoured by the PAP for elections because of the monsoon rains, which prevent voters from attending the rallies of opposition parties. The government determines the time and the sites for public rallies, which usually means that the designated spots are remote and difficult to get to, with grounds that quickly turn into muddy swamps after a downpour.
The GRC system is a monstrous affront to parliamentary representation. Voters cannot choose the candidates they want. The professed rationale for this system is to ensure that ethnic minority communities are not underrepresented in parliament, since each GRC team requires at least one candidate from the minority groups. The PAP argues that the majority Chinese population would be reluctant to elect a candidate not of the same race. Such a principled endeavour would be praiseworthy if it were not for the fact that Jeyaretnam, a minority himself, defeated Chinese PAP candidates in 1981 and again in 1984. In fact, the percentage of ethnic minority MPs declined relative to the population since the 1988 elections, when the scheme was first implemented. Add to this the increasing number of NMPs, the reluctance of the government to hold by-elections, and death of the one-person-one-vote system, and parliamentary democracy in Singapore has become something of an unpalatable joke.
One factor that makes Singaporeans so fearful of taking part in elections is the use of libel laws by the PAP. The judiciary is seen by many to be partial to the ruling party. Several opposition leaders have been rendered bankrupts when they have been unable to pay the millions of dollars in damages to the PAP plaintiffs.
Veteran oppositionist, Joshua B. Jeyaretnam, has paid more than a million dollars to Lee Kuan Yew and other PAP litigants. A former judge, Jeyaretnam had to sell his houses and almost all his possessions to make good on the payments. In January 2001, he was declared bankrupt because he could not pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars he still owed his opponents. Under the law he will lose his seat in parliament and be barred from future elections.
Tang Liang Hong, a successful corporate lawyer and an opposition candidate in the 1997 elections, was sued for defamation for remarks he made about PAP leaders during a public rally. Following the elections, Tang fled the country. His wifeÂ’s passport was quickly impounded and she was made a co-defendant in the lawsuit. Their assets were seized. Months later, a high court judge awarded the 11 PAP plaintiffs US$4.7 million, later reduced to US$2.1 million. Tang was subsequently declared bankrupt when he failed to pay the money. He and his wife lost everything they owned in Singapore. The story would have been less wretched had it ended there. During his exile, the government charged him with 33 counts of tax evasion. There is presently an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
In 2001, Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong sued Dr Chee Soon Juan for defamation for raising questions about SingaporeÂ’s secretive loan to the Suharto regime in 1997 just before he was toppled. The courts then refused to allow Dr Chee to engage foreign lawyers in the form of QueenÂ’s Counsels (QC), even though Dr Chee had indicated that he could not find a local lawyer to represent him and that Lee and Goh had engaged a Senior Counsel (SingaporeÂ’s equivalent of the QC) to act for them. The case was subsequently awarded to the plaintiffs in a summary judgment which meant that Dr Chee was not given an open trial to defend himself and call for witnesses. The plaintiffs were awarded $500,000 in damages.
This was not the first suit brought against Dr Chee. In 1993 when he was sacked from the National University of Singapore and three months after he joined the opposition and contested in an election, Dr Chee was also sued for defamation by the head of the department, who was a PAP MP, for disputing that his dismissal. The amount of costs and damages awarded was approximately $400,000.
Such a scenario has prompted Amnesty International to remark: “Civil defamation suits are being misused by the Executive to intimidate and deter those Singaporeans holding dissenting views.”
It is no wonder then that in its annual report Freedom House says that, “Citizens cannot democratically change their government.” -
There was a joke circulating in camp many years ago about an “overzealous” regular military police ill-treating the inmates in the detention barracks. The inmates, their buddies and everybody else hated him.
One day, while having a meal at a hawker stall in civilian clothes, the mp heard someone calling out his name in a threatening tone. Without turning his head to see who was calling him, the mp quickly stood up and ran away. Once outside the camp, he has no protection. The option is to run.
If the worldÂ’s media reports that Loh Zhen HongÂ’s action is politically motivated and discriminating, it could be humiliating and destructive to the political party that heÂ’s supporting.
Stick to catching real criminals like thieves and robbers. That will enhance his career in the force. -
The duo are representing themselves, and they are not rebutting the charges against them.
Motivation is for investigators to prove the offender.
The courts is not interested in motivation to do an act.
If I report because I don't like the face of the person who did a wrongful act.
Did the wrongful act take place, as reported?
If yes, my motivation to report does not negate the wrongfullness of the act.
What's CSJ motivation in becoming a "hawker"?
It is not important to the court.
Did he break the law? That is the question.
CSJ will not bother to clear himself, because he know he is in the wrong. He deliberately broke the law. All he wants is a performance before the media circus. Ad nausem. -
And the circle goes round and round.........
Why can't he put his legs firmly on the ground instead of making a fool out of himself.... -
Because we cannot expect everyone to conform. And why should we?Originally posted by hloc:And the circle goes round and round.........
Why can't he put his legs firmly on the ground instead of making a fool out of himself....
Maybe you chaps view him as an clown, but does that make it nascently wrong?
It's one thing to disagree with his actions, it's another to perpetuate hegemony of the majority (not the term used in the usual Speaker's Corner rants abt PAP rule) in the most distilled sense.
In this situation, the police have been unable to show a consistant stand with regards to outdoor activity. -
you guys aren't blind right?
you read the "article"?
Police was CALLED IN by a passerby.
When you call in the police, they have to act.
Next time you see an illegal hawker, go call the police. See if they do the same thing to them.
Twisted logic is not going to help the opposition party one bit. What did you expect the officer to do when responding to the call? Ignore the complaint?