After months of investigations, Singapore police finally dropped a bombshell at the end of November: social worker and activist Jolovan Wham would be charged for organizing public assemblies without a permit, vandalism and refusing to sign police statements.
Wham, who has spent his career as a social worker fighting for the rights of low-wage migrant workers, has been investigated multiple times by the police for various events deemed to be “illegal” under Singapore’s restrictive Public Order Act.
Most of the investigations dragged on for months, with little information or updates from authorities before ending just as abruptly as they had begun or with “stern warnings” that have since been ruled by a High Court judge to have no legal effect.
The Singapore Police Force’s press release announcing the charges said Wham had been “recalcitrant” and repeatedly shown “blatant disregard for the law” in organizing or participating in “illegal public assemblies.”
Past investigations and official warnings were triggered by petty offenses such as allowing foreigners to participate in an event held in solidarity with Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement at Singapore’s Speaker’s Corner, for allowing the Singapore flag to touch the ground, and for displaying national emblems in public at an event held in solidarity with Malaysia’s pro-democracy Bersih movement.
He is now being charged for allegedly organizing three illegal assemblies: an indoor forum at which Hong Kong pro-democracy activist Joshua Wong Skyped in as a panelist, a silent protest on an MRT train calling for accountability for activists detained without trial 30 years ago, and a vigil for a death row inmate who was hanged for drug offenses.
(Disclosure: I was a panelist at the first event and am currently also being investigated for participation in the vigil.)
Despite past warnings, investigations and charges, there has been no suggestion that any of Wham’s actions had been disruptive, dangerous or harmful. In fact, police officers present outside Changi Prison on the night of the vigil told participants that we could stay as long as we did not light candles.
While the police’s sudden announcement against Wham came as a surprise, the decision is not shocking considering the fast shrinking space for dissent in Singapore.
The rise of social media and the watershed election of 2011—in which the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) turned in their worst ever performance and swiftly promised a “new normal” with more engagement with the public—were viewed as opportunities for democratization in the wealthy but authoritarian city-state.
It was widely assumed at the time that Singaporeans had found their voice, that the government’s climate of fear had been eroded, and that the PAP-led administration would have to make more allowances for activism and advocacy in the national conversation.
It has not been the case. The 2015 general election — where the PAP regained lost momentum by winning 70% of the vote — showed that the appetite for political change in Singapore was not as big, nor as determined, as many had expected post-2011. Now, the space for civil society and the exercise of civil liberties is not growing, but shrinking.
This year, over 20 people have been investigated under the Public Order Act, a law so overbroad and oppressive that even a single person can constitute an illegal assembly.
Yan Jun, who held one-man protests with placards outside the US Embassy, British High Commission and Raffles Place in Singapore’s Central Business District, was sentenced in August this year to three weeks of imprisonment and a fine of S$20,000 (US$14,850). The court found him guilty of four counts of illegal public assembly without a permit and one count of disorderly behavior.
In October, artist-activist Seelan Palay was arrested under the same law while performing an art piece which involved standing alone outside Parliament House holding a mirror. He is currently out on police bail while investigations are ongoing.
These are not the only recent instances of authoritarianism in action.
Playwright and arts activist Tan Tarn How published a blog post in October raising concerns about artists and academics being blocked from educational institutions. His initial post indicated that he had compiled a list of 15 such people, while a later update revised the number up to 18.
The Administration of Justice (Protection) Act, a broadly worded piece of legislation dealing with contempt of court offenses, was passed in Parliament last year about a month after it was first tabled.
A contempt case has since been initiated against Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s nephew, Li Shengwu, for a Facebook post that was only visible to his friends that said Lee’s government is “very litigious” and presides over a “pliant court system.”
Li’s father, Lee Hsien Yang, was earlier this year locked in a very public feud with his prime ministerial brother over the handling of their late father Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy and home at Oxley Road. The rare family spat was made public in a series of revealing Facebook posts.
Moreover, a civil servant was recently charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act for giving information to a journalist about a new initiative related to resale units of public housing flats that had not yet been made public.
The journalist was handed one of the police’s “stern warnings.” Although the incident failed to generate much public attention or discussion, former journalists have pointed out the potential chilling implications for press freedom.
Further restrictions on civil liberties are on the way. The government has promised to introduce legislation next year to tackle “fake news”—a move described by Freedom House’s ‘Freedom of the Net 2017’ report as one that “did not appear to be referring to content deliberately fabricated to drive revenue or mislead the public.”
Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam has also said that legislation is being reviewed to tighten regulations against hate speech and extremist teaching.
That doesn’t sound so illiberal in theory until recalling that the government characterized teen blogger Amos Yee’s YouTube harmless rants as hate speech, suggesting that the state’s tolerance threshold is low. (Yee was recently granted political asylum in America.)
With new restrictions on the way, Wham is unlikely to be the last pro-democracy activist to face persecution. While this may not seem like monumental backtracking considering the democratic calamities underway in the US and some European countries, the risk is that illiberal regimes learn and ape repressive tactics from one another.
December 30, 2017
AN ANNIVERSARY RETROSPECTIVE OF ASYLEE AMOS YEE — A REPORT CARD ON 10 KEY PLAYERS BEHIND THE AMOS ASYLUM SCANDAL
A first-year anniversary look-back on the now largely disenchanted fan base of Amos Yee: with the exception of a dwindling handful of supporters, most of the fans/followers (such as his fairy godmother Melissa Chen) whom Amos did so mesmerize and bamboozle since 2015, are now totally disillusioned with their freedom-of-speech icon.
It was about a year ago in late Dec. 2016, the Singapore teen hellion Amos Yee made local media headline news, having bolted abruptly from Singapore to America seeking political asylum. At that time Amos was still being hailed by his admirers as the pluperfect poster boy of free speech escaping ‘persecution’ at home for a piece of freedom paradise in Wonderland. But holy moly, just what difference a year makes. And if Mary Toh (Amos’ mother) who has made no secret of her exhortation to her son to flee the country, were told a year ago that her son upon arrival in the States would be incarcerated for 10 long months, after which he would be driven homeless, booted from pillar to post — from the Windy City to the Twin Cities to Frisco by the Bay all within a month — that a local YouTuber would threaten Amos’ life for his being an apologist-activist to the paedophilia demimonde and consequently his Internet banking lifeline (Paypal donation-receiving account) would be permanently terminated — indeed, any such speculative prattle would have been summarily dismissed by the mother as issuing from some surly critic merely blowing smoke. But good grief, 12 months on after she last saw her son, Mary Toh has now but to put all such improbable Amos talk in her pipe and smoke it — what occurrences that would only seem too far-fetched have all transpired for Amos Yee in the last 12 months. Hollywood couldn’t have written a more improbable script: according to self-styled ‘fourth-wave free-speech absolutist’ Amos Yee, as America’s freshly minted teen political dissident asylee — courtesy of U.S. Immigration Judge Samuel Cole — babies are permitted to diddle with adult penis like lollipop in mouth as long as toddlers themselves relish such oral stimulation. (Just check out the above highlighted YouTube ‘babies’ link at time sequence 23:45 if you are oblivious to what he’s been up to.)
Here now a who’s who behind the infamous free-speech career of this 19-year-old Singaporean hellion: …
https://lester978.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/an-anniversary-retrospective-of-asylee-amos-yee-a-report-card-on-10-key-players-behind-the-amos-asylum-scandal/
(Reposted from http://www.lester978.wordpress.com)
December 18, 2017
FREE-SPEECH ACTIVISM TAKES A BEATING IN SINGAPORE: THE AMOS YEE KNOCK-ON EFFECT
What does Amos Yee’s Sept. appellate affirmation of asylum in the States have to do of late with a rash of ongoing criminal investigations/charges in Singapore against peaceable remonstrations? — everything!
In late Sept., through a fortunate stroke of serendipity, the Singapore teenage hellion Amos Yee prevailed over DHS’s appeal (Dept. of Homeland Security). This happens after DHS’s acting Secretary Elaine Duke decided against further appealing the ill-conceived asylum granted to Amos in late March by Immigration Judge Cole; acting Secretary Elaine Duke temporarily assumed DHS’s top job as of July when then DHS Secretary John Kelly, a 4-star Marine General, acceded to the post of White House Chief of Staff. In a word, the Amos’ ‘final win’ is a black swan event, utterly unanticipated by the Singapore gov. This came about because of the near total disarray in the Trump Admin whose various key executive departments are literally at sixes and sevens with the White House, in particular the DOJ which in effect OK’d Amos’ asylum bid in late September. (The Dept. of Justice is headed by Attorney General Jeff Sessions whom President Trump has bruited about wanting him fired, on more than one occasion.) https://lester978.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/how-amos-yee-beat-the-u-s-asylum-system-the-unfinished-story-of-a-teen-brat-from-singapore/
Notwithstanding being caught totally flat-footed, the Amos’ outcome suits the Singapore gov. just fine as she has one less hellion to deal with within her remit. Furthermore, IMHO, out of the Amos cause célèbre, the authority at home becomes the wiser with 2 important takeaways: 1) anyone who rocks the boat — especially a ‘recidivist’ (repeat offender) — should be dealt with properly and firmly, and 2) restrain from overreacting against non-violent first-time scofflaw, esp. one who is underage. [I have long argued Amos was ‘over-punished’ for his 2015 convictions but ‘under-punished’ for his 2016 willful recidivism.] And this brings us to the recent rash of criminal to quasi-criminal proceedings against activism in Singapore of which the cases of Messrs. Jolovan Wham and Li Shengwu are highlighted below.
‘To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived — this is to have succeeded.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson Mr. Jolovan Wham is no phony baloney Amos Yee. Unlike Amos, Jolovan is well regarded at home in Singapore for his active citizenship and as well regionally for his social activism — that earned him in 2011 the Promising Social Worker Award conferred on him by none other than the President of Singapore. However, he’s now being charged in court for violating the Public Order Act in staging a ‘silent protest’ along with eight others without a permit on an MRT subway train… they were purposely marking the 30th anniversary of Operation Spectrum in which some 16 to 22 local activists were arrested and detained for months on end without trial in 1987 under Singapore’s Internal Security Act. But I was puzzled at once by Jolovan’s indiscretion in the matter. For I’m unaware that even one life has breathed easier because of the train ‘sit-in’. And not to put too fine a point on it, his this act of public ‘silent protest’ against an erstwhile apparent injustice amounts to a publicity stunt devoid of civic value to say nothing of its political pointlessness. Let’s not mince words then: it’s nothing more than woolly, wishful thinking if Jolovan (and company) was expecting some Truth-and-Reconciliation-like dividend to emanate from his public silent demonstration. Truth is: the deets of that Operation 30 years ago will never see the light of day unless and until a complete sea change someday in the powers that be if and only if that ever happened. But fear not, if this is Jolovan’s first offense, he should get away with nothing more than a slap on the wrist — I trust. …
https://lester978.wordpress.com/2017/12/18/free-speech-activism-takes-a-beating-in-singapore-the-amos-yee-knock-on-effect/
(N.B.: Above post is truncated due to the pro forma 5k-character limitation.)
Paradise on earth does not exist. Choices need to be made. To judge those choices, one should compare what is comparable. Why do people not compare? Singapore was part of Malaysia. Compare Malaysia and Singapore! 50 years after the separation, where would you want to live to raise your children?
Switzerland has had the same governement mix since 1959, with no major change. It is a bottoom-up egalitarian society. Singapore is a top-down system.
Compare the result!
The majority of the Swiss do no longer participate in the political debate. It is only rarely that more than 50% of those entitled to vote bother to vote. The noisiest and most often quoted in the media represent well organized minorities, not the majority.
Does that lead to better results for those living in Switzerland? In Singapore the media and the political process are closely monitored. In Switzerland improvisation governs. Is the majority happier, feeling that it has a better life?
Singapore was more able to defend its interest than Switzerland when they came under pressure from the USA and the EU.
But minorities matter too. They must be allowed to live their differences. They have also a right to happiness and must be able to defend it. This is not always the case, neither in Switzerland nor in Singapore. Sometimes the majority unecessarily restricts the rights of minorities.
So, yes, things can be improved, but not at the cost of disrupting what has produced over the years satisfactory results. This is why there will never be a clear answer as to where to draw the line, how much the governement should interfere, but it is certainly not up to foreigners and foreign organisations to influence where the locals want to draw such lines.
Social engineering at its finest, LKY, knew what he was doing and how he was going to do it. His legacy continues, crystal clear monacracy, this is how it "governs" herself. Said that through equality we shall prosper, but the prospect was so bias. So minsters could always have their sets taken over by their sons. The fact is they have their own group where the nation’s money is pooled in, so they could afford luxuries. Corruption is still there but you don’t see it, commoners don’t understand things as such. They are engrossed and cultured to hassle and live stressful life’s.
Vince Cheok I salute you sir. From the Philippines
Amos Yee, and no mention of him being a pedophile advocate?
Ms Han might want to remove a reference to him. Unless she supports a pedo defender like Yee.
Good new btw. Yee got booted from the foster home by orders of CPS, Turns out advocating child porn is not a good thing for children. Hope Big Jamal at the homeless shelter learns of Yee wanting to bang babies.
Oh sure! The ruling Peoples Action Party does not seem to mind individual malcontents (say) gathering down at speakers’ corner and letting off some steam in public. But one thing that they have demonstrated over decades is utter intolerance towards any sign of organised opposition. The PAP has rather successfully done everything within its power to prevent a party of loyal Opposition from forming. So there is no independent source of scrutiny within Singapore to hold their government accountable: the obvious consrquence being that the so called PAP is accountable to no one other than itself. As a direct flow on there is no alternative leadership to be voted into office when the ruling party finally screws up sufficiently – as inevitably it is bound to. Singapore’s destiny is imprudently tied exclusively to that of just one political party. If I were Singaporean I would feel very uncomfortable about that. Once the PAP finally goes off the rails Singapore will come undone in a big way.