Gerald Giam

Freedom House Press Freedom Report on Singapore

Singapore

Status: Not Free
Legal Environment: 24
Political Environment: 24
Economic Environment: 21
Total Score: 69

Media freedom in Singapore continued to be constrained in 2007, with the vast majority of print and broadcast journalists practicing self-censorship for fear of harsh defamation charges, while a government review raised concerns of increased restrictions for online content in the future. The Singapore Constitution provides the right to freedom of speech and expression in Article 14, but also permits restrictions on these rights. In addition, the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act, the Defamation Act, and the Internal Security Act (ISA) constrain press freedom, allowing the authorities to restrict the circulation of news deemed to incite violence, arouse racial or religious tensions, interfere in domestic politics, or threaten public order, national interest or national security. The judiciary lacks independence and systematically returns verdicts in the government’s favor, further undermining press freedom in the city-state. Singapore law does not recognized journalists’ rights to protect the identity of their sources and in May 2007, Reuters correspondent Mia Shanley was forced to reveal an anonymous source in a commercial case under an order from the Court of Appeals.

Films, television programs, music, books and magazines are sometimes censored; all films with a political purpose are banned unless government-sponsored. In April 2007, the government banned a film by filmmaker and blogger Martyn See about Said Zahari, a journalist and political activist who was held without trial for 17 years under the ISA. Although Zahari’s 17 Years, was banned under the Film Act from being screened in Singapore, it could still be viewed on the Internet. The Singapore government and ruling party members are quick to sue critics under harsh civil and criminal defamation laws in order to silence and bankrupt political opponents and critical media outlets. Foreign media in Singapore are also subject to such pressures and restrictive laws. In October 2007, the Financial Times published an apology and agreed to pay damages to the ruling Lee family for a September article that suggested nepotism factored into various appointments allocated to several of its members. Foreign publications are required by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts to post a bond of S$200,000 (approximately $127,200) and appoint a local legal representative if they wish to publish in Singapore. In August 2006, after the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) published an interview with opposition party leader Chee Soon Juan, it and four other foreign publications were informed they would no longer be exempt from the regulations as they had been previously and needed to post a deposit. When the FEER did not comply, its circulation permit was revoked, effectively banning the publication, a ban which remained in effect throughout 2007, though the publication was accessible online. In a corresponding defamation suit filed by the prime minister and his father over the article, a June 2007 ruling by the Singapore High Court rejected the magazine’s application for a Queen’s Counsel from the United Kingdom to represent it.

Nearly all print and broadcast media outlets, Internet service providers, and cable television services are either owned or controlled by the state, or by companies with close ties to the ruling People’s Action Party. Annual licensing requirements for all media outlets, including political and religious web sites, have been used to inhibit criticism of the government. Internet use is widespread in Singapore, but the government attempts to restrict and control it by licensing Internet service providers. Websites offering political or religious content are also required to register with the government’s Media Development Authority (MDA), thus making a website’s owners and editors criminally liable for any content that the government finds objectionable. Although the ruling party has been successful in curbing dissenting opinion among traditional print and broadcast media, the Internet has proven more difficult to control. Bloggers and discussion groups still offer alternative views and a virtual channel for expressing dissent. During the year, an online petition against a proposed salary hike for government ministers collected thousands of signatures as well as comments criticizing the hike and the authorities’ lack of accountability. In March 2007, the MDA announced that it was seeking to expand the jurisdiction of its Media Market Conduct Code from the traditional print and broadcast sectors to new media markets. Although the MDA said its review was intended “to better address competition issues that may arise under the new landscape”, international watchdog groups expressed concerns that the revisions would be used to limit ownership and stifle online dissent. The internet was accessed by over 66 percent of the population in 2007.

Download the full report here.

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Singapore was ranked 153rd out of 170 countries.

Have Singaporeans really moved on?

Scanning the forum pages of our English dailies, I notice a glaring absence of any letters about Mas Selamat-gate.

This could be due to one of two things:
1. Singaporeans have really moved on, as SM Goh Chok Tong and Straits Times’ political editor Chua Lee Hong exhorted us to; or

2. The media is rejecting all letters about the issue, and is failing its national duty of reflecting the views of Singaporeans.

Which one is it?

p.s. those who read the Chinese, Malay and Tamil press, do share the situation on that front.

Time to move on?

While some people continue to debate who is to be held accountable for Mas Selamat Kastari’s escape, Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong believes the more urgent task is to stay on top of problems like soaring food prices.

Straits Times, 27 April

A familiar pattern whenever scandals involving government wrongdoing/negligence/incompetence break out is:

Damage control
Press reports and comments on only the safe topics
Blogs come up with conspiracy theories
Grand exhortation by MM, PM and/or SM, in that order
Opposition makes a small whimper.
Press all falls in line, reporting only what the big men have said.
Forum page articles all show Singaporeans reacting in support of the govt.
Blogs go ballistic attacking the govt.
One of the big men says: “Let’s move on”. Agenda is abruptly changed to something relatively unimportant.
Press obediently complies. Blogs go even more ballistic.
A few weeks later, everything is forgotten.
People still vote for the PAP at next election.

The East Asian twist in the Middle East nuclear crisis

There’s never a dull moment in Middle East politics. But Israel’s relationship with its Arab neighbours has taken a much more intriguing twist in recent months.

On Sept 6 last year, Israeli F-15 and F-16 warplanes secretly bombed a mysterious target in northeastern Syria. It was not until weeks later that the world got to know about this bombing, and Israel remained mum about it more than 10 days after the news broke.

Initial speculation was that the target was either (1) a cache of arms bound for Hezbollah, a terrorist group committed to the destruction of Israel; (2) a practice run for an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities; or (3) a joint North Korean-Syrian nuclear reactor project.

Syria’s feeble response after its Jewish neighbour’s audacious invasion of its airspace and attack within its borders only increased suspicion that the third scenario — a nuclear facility — was actually in the works. Even Syria’s Arab neighbours were deafeningly silent on the bombing, when one would expect them to be outraged over this attack on their Arab brethren. Judging from the nature of inter-Arab politics, they — Saudi Arabia and Egypt in particular — must have been secretly pleased that Israel removed this threat from their backyard.

The issue was revived again in last Thursday when the US openly accused Syria of building a secret nuclear reactor with North Korea’s help. Some have accused the US of using this as a negotiating ploy with North Korea. Predictably, Syrian diplomats angrily refuted the American claims. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) also expressed much unhappiness that the US and Israel did not share their intelligence with it, in order for them to send weapons inspectors to Syria to check out the facility themselves.

I feel the IAEA has the right to feel upset that it was totally sidelined and made irrelevant in this issue. But what else did they expect from Israel?

I am not a diehard supporter of the State of Israel, but I think that the action that Israel took was appropriate and necessary in this case. It already has a disaster waiting to happen with its other neighbour, Iran, and their alleged nuclear programme. It was a good move for them to have nipped Syria’s nuclear programme in the bud, before it opened up another nuclear front for them on their northeast border.

It will certainly be interesting to see how this situation pans out in the coming weeks.

See also:
– Shock waves from Syria (Washington Post editorial)
– IAEA chief hits out at US, Israel over Syrian reactor claims (CNA)
.

Olympic protests not an attempt to embarrass Chinese people

A PRC Chinese friend of mine recently asked me over dinner what I thought about the Tibet situation — the Tibet independence movement, Western protests, Chinese reaction, and so on.

He pointed out to me and our other Singaporean friends present how the Western press had been lying about the situation in Tibet. For example, German newspapers featured scenes of police suppressing protestors. But those policemen were revealed to be Nepalese police, not Chinese. (I presume websites like anti-cnn.com which point out these untruths have been circulating endlessly among Chinese both in China and overseas.)

I have noticed that Chinese nationals all seem to have a strikingly similar perspective on the issue: That Westerners are jealous of a rising China and are trying to prevent the 1.4 billion people of China from taking their rightful place in this world.

Perhaps this is because most of them get their news from Chinese government mouthpieces like Xinhua, or from friends who read Xinhua or anti-cnn.com.

Knowing how sensitive this issue is with Chinese nationals, and not wanting to offend, I told him that I felt this whole situation was a misunderstanding between the Chinese and the West.

I told my friend that I feel that the majority of the Western “free Tibet” protesters are not out to embarrass the people of China or insult China (as in the country). Their protests are an attempt to embarrass the totalitarian Communist government of the People’s Republic of China, whom they believe need to open up and move towards a more representative government, rule of law and justice for all its people. Sure, there might be a few bigots among them, but we in China and Singapore do not realise that there are many European and American civil society activists who are genuinely seeking a more just world, even outside their own borders.

As for the misrepresentation of China in the Western press, I explained that in the West, unlike China and Singapore, there are no political controls on the press. Countries like Germany have countless newspapers which are all competing for readership.

One of the easiest (albeit least ethical) ways to increase readership is to sensationalise issues. Scenes of peaceful streets in Lhasa will not sell. So sometimes journalists in these papers will scrounge for random pictures to back their story of a harsh crackdown by the Chinese authorities. And since to many cloistered Westerners, all Asian people look the same, scenes of Kathmandu and Lhasa are indistinguishable.

However unethical (or ignorant) this might be, Chinese people should not see this as an attempt by Western governments to put down China. Since none of these papers take orders from their governments (unlike in China and Singapore), it is a mistake to attribute the newspapers’ stand on issues to that of their government.

I personally find this raucous Chinese nationalism very distasteful. The majority of Han Chinese have no idea what goes on in Tibet or Xinjiang. Whatever they hear from their national media is — like the Gold 90.5 FM advertisement — only the good stuff. How can they be in a position to judge that the Tibetan protesters (in Tibet) have no justification for wanting autonomy or independence?

I find it even more irritating when some chauvinist Chinese Singaporeans, who themselves have no link to China, automatically take sides with China without an understanding of the kind of government that rules that country. They too see the Chinese government through the lens of what our national media paints it to be.

I think it is important that all of us, whether Singaporean, Chinese or European, is that we all need to be more discerning when reading the news. Not everything the media churns out is the truth. Every story has two sides to it. We will do well to study both sides before forming our opinions.

Fortunately the Internet has opened up the media scene tremendously and enabled many of us to seek out these different perspectives easily with a click of a button. But how many of us make the effort to do this?

My Response to MP Lam Pin Min’s blog

Well at least some of our P65 MPs are writing about the Mas Selamat issue and its aftermath.

Dr Lam Pin Min wrote a piece defending the PM and DPM’s arguments about how they see government responsibility. Here’s an excerpt:

Yes, the Minister is ultimately responsible for his ministry’s policies and operations, which was why a COI was necessary to account for the lapses and to be answerable to the public. Just like the PM is accountable for his cabinet ministers. But, does that mean that the minister is culpable for all the mistakes that his subordinate (sic) commits? This cannot be.

Here is a comment I left in response:

Dear Mr Lam,

I have already read PM’s speech. Why bother copying and pasting it here?

The more you defend your bosses, the deeper a hole you are burying yourself and others in your party in, simply because the Executive’s self-righteous arguments lack merit on their own.

I urge you and your PAP colleagues to put down your cheerleading pom poms for a moment and do a better job reflecting the feelings of the people on the ground.

Most of us are not asking for Mr Wong’s resignation. We just want some admission of personal accountability.

And for goodness sakes, don’t tell us that by punishing the Minister, it will demoralize the whole Ministry. On the contrary, but putting all the blame on the small guys at WRDC, the officers at MHA and ISD will get the message that when push comes to shove, they will be the fall guys when something goes wrong.

I’d like to end with a quote from Newcastle, one of the readers of my blog, who left this comment:

“Is this then the precedent being set among the ministers where things go right, I get my million dollar pay package and take the credit. When things go wrong, I get my million dollar pay package and blame my minions.”

Regards,
Gerald Giam

Afternote: It should be “Dr Lam” not “Mr Lam”. My apologies to the good doctor.

Don’t demoralise MHA by punishing the Minister

Yesterday PM Lee told Parliament:

The Minister is ultimately accountable for the policies and operations of his Ministry. But this does not mean that if a lapse occurs down the line, every level in the chain of command, up to and including the Minister should automatically be punished or removed. Based on the facts, we have to decide who fell short in performing his duties, and what is the appropriate disciplinary action for each officer involved. We also have to follow due process, giving officers the chance to defend themselves. Otherwise we will demoralise the organisation and discourage officers from taking initiatives (sic) or responsibility, for fear of being punished for making mistakes.

I said yesterday that if the logic goes that a Minister shold not be punished for a lapse that occurs down the line, then he will never get punished for anything, because everything the Minister “does” is actually done by his civil servants.

PM said that to punish the Minister would demoralise the organisation and discourage lower level staff from taking initiative or responsibility.

Nothing could be further from the truth!

Instead, if everytime something goes wrong, and only the lower level staff get punished, that would do much greater damage to morale. Not only would staff not take initiative and responsibility, but they would ask themselves: “Why bother when I’m going to be made to take the whole rap if something goes wrong?”

This is very bad management style. The boss should always take responsibility, and the rap if necessary.

Then again, perhaps PM was referring to morale among the top level elite Administrative Officers and Ministers. That is probably his greatest concern. To heck with those losers with fewer than 4 As in their A levels.

Protecting their own kind

The PM and Home Minister have given their statements in Parliament regarding Mas Selamat’s escape.

I am glad that although the Committee of Inquiry (COI) report was not released, at least the details of how Mas Selamat escaped — complete with pictures — were. I’m also glad to learn that this wasn’t an inside job. And I think it’s fitting that not just junior officials, but even the Superintendent of Whitley Road Detention Centre (WRDC) will be punished for this lapse.

That’s the good stuff. Now for the not so good.

The Escape

I wonder what was going on in the mind of the Gurkha who accompanied Mas Selamat into the toilet. Didn’t he find it a bit odd that the water was kept running for 11 minutes? Couldn’t he have banged on the door and asked Mas Selamat what was taking him so long? Or looked under the door? Or heard him opening the window and squeezing himself out? Why did he go OUT of the washroom to look for the female ISD officer to alert her, leaving the prisoner completely unattended. Maybe it was during those few seconds that Mas Selamat was able to escape from the window undetected.

Next the leap over the fence. The COI said it was most likely that he jumped on top of the covered walkway and lept across the fences to freedom. I find that quite incredible. The photo shows a double row of fencing, each with barbed wire on top, and separated by at least 2 m. The ground on the other side is filled with shrubs. Even if Mas Selamat lept across it, he would have broken his ankle when he landed.

The alleged escape across the fence is uncannily similar to the method used by NSF Dave Teo, who went AWOL from his army camp with a SAR21 assault rifle and several 5.56mm ammunition rounds. Teo lept from a parapet situated near a fence to escape. Did our security agencies not learn a thing from this very recent incident — that you should never have any fixed platforms near a fence?

Responsibility

I am shocked to learn that the punishment for allowing Mas Selamat to escape will be limited to only officers in the WRDC. Surely there are others in the ISD and MHA who are partially responsible.

It was reported that the toilet Mas Selamat escaped from was usually used by visitors and staff of WRDC. These visitors must, at one point or another, have included senior officials from ISD and MHA like the Director ISD, the Permanent Secretary (Home Affairs) and even the Minister himself. The Deputy Secretary (Security) who sat on the COI must have seen the same window design in the women’s toilet.

Did it not occur to any of them that there was a huge, ungrilled window with a ledge below it? Why did they not sound any alert? Were they complacent too? If so, do they not share part of the responsibility?

High security installations like these usually have regular security audits by another higher unit. If these audits were carried out, why didn’t the auditors discover the ungrilled window and the fence with a covered walkway beside it? These auditors should also be punished for their negligence. If no such audits took place, why not? ISD and MHA then bear some responsibility for not instituting these external audits.

PM’s speech today in Parliament and his responses to MPs’ questions were most disappointing.

He put up a stout defence for his Home Minister and Director ISD, saying they are “ultimately accountable” but “were not to blame”. This is a contradiction in itself. If you are accountable for something and that something goes wrong, you are to blame. That is what leadership is about.

I’m not asking for any resignations. But for everyone up the chain of command beyond the Superintendent of the WRDC to get away scot free is breathtaking! No one is going to even get fined, forfeit leave, sign extra, do push ups?

The PM said: “(T)his does not mean that if a lapse occurs down the line, every level in the chain of command, up to and including the Minister should automatically be punished or removed.”

In that case, no Minister will ever be punished for anything, because Ministers never do anything with their own hands. Everything that they do in the course of their work is actually carried out by a battalion of civil servants working under them.

PM chose to trot out the “we are not like other countries” argument, when he pointed out that we should not have a culture where Ministers “fall on their swords” whenever something goes wrong, just for political expediency. This is playing back like a tired old record from his father’s era. Most Singaporeans with half a brain will know it is less about being different from other countries, but more about protecting their own kind — the tight-knit network of elites who run this country.

What JBJ actually said at his Reform Party press con

While our local press dutifully reported about the press conference held by JB Jeyaratnam about his registration of the Reform Party, it appears they only reported the “constructive” stuff he said, but none of the 1 hour of criticisms of the PAP.

It’s pathetic that even Channel NewsAsia’s report is based on a report filed by AFP. Can’t we even report about our own country?

Here’s the AFP report:

A tough-talking new political party vowed on Friday to fight what it called the “enslavement” of Singapore after nearly half-a-century of rule by the People’s Action Party (PAP).

“Our people have been enslaved all this while,” J.B. Jeyaretnam, 82, interim secretary general of the Reform Party, told a news conference.

He said Singaporean society has been “castrated” and its people left powerless by an executive that holds “absolute power.”

For Jeyaretnam, a rare voice criticising the PAP over the past decades, the party’s formation marks his full return to politics after emerging from bankruptcy and being reinstated as a lawyer.

“We now in the Reform Party are not going to play pussy-foot with the PAP,” he told reporters at the close of a lengthy address which outlined what he sees as the country’s social, political and economic problems.

“I think it’s time now to ask questions and hold the PAP to account,” he said.

Party officials said they held the news conference a day after filing documents to register their party.

The opposition plays only a marginal role in Singapore but Jeyaretnam made political history in 1981 when he became the first opposition politician elected to parliament. He was then secretary general of the Workers’ Party.

The lawyer was disbarred when he was declared bankrupt in 2001 after failing to pay libel damages to members of the PAP, including former prime minister Goh Chok Tong.

During his bankruptcy, he was reduced to hawking his self-penned books outside city subway stations.

Last year Jeyaretnam paid 233,255 Singapore dollars (now 172,578 US) to clear his bankruptcy, which had prevented him from running for political office, after help from friends and his prominent lawyer son.

He was also reinstated to the bar and has resumed legal practice.

On Friday, Jeyaretnam said he did not care whether Singapore’s “obedient press” reported his comments — which continued for 80 minutes.

“Some things have to be said,” he stated as he began the speech.

He said Singapore, which prides itself on having ‘First World’ status, faces a widening gulf between rich and poor.

Government leaders earn millions but many families survive on one or two thousand dollars a month (605-1,1210 US), yet nobody speaks up, he said.

“There is, I don’t have to tell you, a fear culture in Singapore,” Jeyaretnam said. “It’s a total enslavement of the people.”

He said the party’s registration documents contained the names of only 10 people — and even attracting that many was not easy.

“People are still afraid,” he said.

Asked whether his news conference in a hotel meeting room was being monitored by police, he replied: “I’m sure that it is.”

Jeyaretnam said he hopes not only to reform the structure of the Singapore system but also people’s way of thinking, to rouse them from a PAP-induced “slumber.”

Jeyaretnam said that, if he is physically able, he will stand as a candidate in the next general election due by 2011.

He called for a complete overhaul of the electoral system, which he said places opposition parties at a disadvantage. The PAP won all but two seats in last year’s polls for the 84-member parliament.

The country’s leaders say its tough laws against dissent and other political activity are necessary to ensure the stability which has helped it achieve economic success. Thousands of foreign firms are based in Singapore, one of the most politically stable countries in the region.

The leaders dismiss criticisms from human rights groups who have said the government uses libel laws to silence critics, saying they have to protect their reputations.

Jeyaratnam spoke at a table with two other party officials beside him. To their left stood a white board which carried only two words in blue ink: “Reform Party.”

Bloggers to call for bold changes to new media regulation

I have been working with a group of fellow bloggers which will be submitting recommendations to the Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts within the next few days on the subject of Internet regulation. This open letter, which will be released to the public at the same time, will call for sweeping changes to bring Singapore in line with international norms and the reality of the new technology.

Its key proposals include:

1. All regulation of speech should be platform-neutral, given the steady convergence of various platforms as a result of the digital revolution. There should not be different rules for different media.

2. Platform-neutral regulations should be harmonised to be as minimal as the current freest platform, if not even freer.

3. What rules there need to be should be narrowly tailored and should serve clear social purposes.

4. Rules should take the form of unambiguous laws, and in extremis, violators prosecuted, rather than take the form of licensing, bureaucratic discretion and administrative penalties as currently is the case. The various licensing schemes and the Media Development Authority’s powers to fine and ban should be dismantled.

5. Shielding a government from criticism is not a legitimate social purpose. Restraining political content is unjustified in principle and unrealistic in practice, and the attempt to do so impairs Singapore’s maturity as a nation.

6. The group notes that there are plenty of laws that need to be amended or repealed to give effect to the recommendations, such as the Broadcasting Act, the Parliamentary Elections Act and the Films Act. As this may take time, the group proposes that in the interim, there could be an Internet Freedom Act that sets out clear guarantees for Internet freedom, over-riding the multiple (and sometimes conflicting) restrictions in all these other laws, regulations and codes of practice.

7. The group advocates a much bigger role for community moderation and in fact sees an ongoing trend wherein site owners themselves ensure a responsible use of their digital space. To further this process, the group suggests that an Internet Community Consultative Committee (IC3) be set up comprising one-third independent content providers, one-third persons familiar with rapidly evolving digital technologies, and one-third regular consumers of Internet content (i.e. regular surfers). They should not have any legal powers, but serve as a regular meeting point for citizens concerned with the free and responsible use of digital media.

8. Controversies relating to Internet speech should as far as possible be resolved via community moderation. Only when public safety is at serious risk should the law and prosecution be invoked.

The group of 15 persons was led by Choo Zheng Xi from The Online Citizen and Alex Au of Yawning Bread, and started work in December last year.