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.
Kirsten Han,
I really do not see the point you are making?
Like many prudent readers out there we do not trust anyone on a superficial reading, whether it be the Government or an NGO or a private individual that naturally owe an allegiance of loyalty to the country or foreigners at large, sometimes veiled and disguised and camouflaged, for these days, there all these foreign subversives out there representing all the different conflicting ideologies globally. No longer do we trust the West because they are the West of the East because they are the East or any religion because they profess to be the true faith. We are Singaporeans first and last and we shall build our own society based on our own values of aspirations. Whatever values elsewhere from any cardinal point in the world, and whatever the tenet, scope, colour or complexion, it can only be Singaporean when its is first imbued with Singaporean cultural characteristics and mores.
And so before you start amok preemptively on your Western concepts of freedom of expression or individual rights, I as a senior, a pensioner, of LKY’s generation, suggest that you start first on basic and fundamental concepts of family first and filial piety and aspire for a Government that focuses first on bread and butter issues like employment, food on the table, housing, education, public health and welfare, law and order, national security, strong economy, public infrastructure, women and children can walk safely in the streets 24/7, no corrupt public servants or crooked businessmen and fraudsters out there cheating ordinary folks.
In life you start off with a priorities list of what the Government should deliver on. No one is perfect in an imperfect world. If the Government should fail on things listed lowly in priorities like the matters you were talking about as to what was happening in HK, or Malaysia or even insidious blogs on the internet which does not value add to society’s peace and harmony and prosperity, it does not really affect the price of eggs or the bus fare or my public health treatment does it?
In an Asian context, to expect the luxury of idle time wasted on advancing Western concept of human rights of an individual, you are not seeing the forest from the trees.
Please take a helicopter view! Do not have a long list of boxes to be ticked off based on priorities and start panicking bones when some boxes very low and down the list are marked as failures by you. Ask as the bottom line – do we have a country under this Government that we can stand tall and proud in the world – because the world views Singapore with respect and honour.
So do not please go out in a public forum and be so self righteous and self-centred and egocentrical and self-judgemental to assume that you are right and speaking for the majority of the citizenry.
We are all equal before the sun. Just cast your votes where it counts, and for who who wish, at the election booth.
Will you be what you are learned and erudite and literate it seems to write a public commentary if Singapore were a small tiny third world African country instead.
Before you persist in acting like a ‘banana’ respect your traditional Chinese values – first respect the ruler, second, then take out a balancing scale and weigh the pros and the cons of the ruler, third, if the good outweighs the bad, keep your mouth shut.
Having a Government at all instead of having an anarchy is like having a wife. You go and vote with both eyes wide open. Once the people have voted, close one eye, until the next election. Do not be pedantic and keep looking for every small fault and defect. The person who never makes a mistake is not a human!
Do not get me wrong! I am not saying the Government is perfect! Nobody is. I am not. No husband or wife, son or daughter is!
Vince Chook: by any chance are you on the Singapore government payroll?
This isounds like a typical blatant personal attack against someone like Vince Chook who is appealing for fair criticism. I myself don’t know Vince Chook, and I am not on Singapore government payroll. I am a 70-year-old grandpa of four, who had been working on multinational corporations’ payrolls 40 years, travelling worldwide, and had seen much. No country is perfect, and the Singapore government leaders are not perfect, but we know that they are doing the best they can for a little country without natural resources and surrounded by more than 200 million so far friendly neighbours among whom are potential trouble-makers.
@ Vince Cheok: The PAP government has been in power since 1959 and is still the government. LKY wanted to be feared. What kind of nonsense is that? He was a politician who has to lead and serve the PEOPLE and nation.
Asian values is adulterated to the extent that the burden are all on the children to look after the parents under the bastardised version of Asian values under LKY. Life, liberty and the pursuit of the individual’s happiness is a human right. I’d not waffle on but put it in crystal clear terms: You are for authoritanism for which I do NOT know why so.
The world will be better of when we have people like Ms Kirsten Han willing to put herself forward sacrificially through fighting for what is right, just and humane.
In short I strongly disagree with you. However, I’d agree that we have the choice and we should vote the PAP government out. Not today but tomorrow will be ideal!
@James Kwok : Thank you for your dissenting view.
I’ll take it that you have read the article posted by Ms Kirsten Han. Question: Are the unjust and unreasonable actions of the government acceptable? You have mentioned that you’ve travelled widely and it is the standard of the democratic advance nations that we are comparing and contrasting it to the governance of Singapore.
It is true that no country is perfect but surely we can be much better than having a government that write laws to bind and punish the citizens to effectively beat us into submission for disagreeing with their policies.
Freedom of speech and assembly is curtailed by the government despite the fact that The Constitution allows for it. Why is the government afraid of the people speaking out what they think? And, fearful of the people protetsting peacefully? It is plain and simple: There are too many things that the government are hiding from us for which we, the citizens, have every right to know.
I have no doubt given the facts already known that the government is a criminal organization. In democratic first world nations the serious misconduct of the government would have led to their resignation in shame and/or to criminal prosecution.
Daniel Ong
You and I are generations apart. You do not know what Singapore was like before LKY. But that is besides the point. Your generation is our future. Our future does not mean we have to be ‘bananas’!
I have 3 degrees from overseas universities and I am not a ‘banana’.
As Singapore develops it should have its own Singaporean culture and legal and political regime. Do not be so presumptuous that democracy is the answer. Yes, Singapore should absorb foreign concepts that are good for it but for its unique Singaporean colour and complexion of mainly Asian multiracial multicultural diversity to be retained any such concept must first be imbued with Singaporean characteristics.
You are so convinced of individual rights. You have been ‘brainwashed’ by hegemonistic white supremacist mindset and ideology which like to dump their parents into old folks homes and hospices. Trust me, you will be an old parent one day too. And you will remember reading this,
We are brought up as Chinese that there is no greater love and devotion than a mother’s love for her newborn child. And that there is no greater duty and responsibility than filial piety. From this we get the Confucianist tenet surviving since antiquity of the basic unit of society as the family and not the individual.
By putting the family unit first in the abstract we learn not to be selfish, not to be egocentric, not to be self-centred and not to be egoistic. For all the problems of this world comes from the pride of the Ego of a Self. Having filial piety as an ideal teaches you to be selfless!
Daniel Ong:
It easy for you to express your opinion from the Streets of Adelaide, Australia. Try being physically present in Singapore and having to go thru 1st hand experience on actual living in Singapore. Rules are made in favor of the government not the people of Singapore. Cost of living is one of the greatest in the world and their own people have to compete with foreigners for a job! Give yourself a year to come back home to Singapore and you will be wanting to get back to Adelaide in a heartbeat
@ Vince Cheok : I am 66 years young.
We have gone out of the subject matter which is freedom of speech and assembly. The Constitution, the Overriding Law, permits it, but the government under LKY in the main put in clauses to specifically deny us the right to do so in order to reinforce his political (bully boy) dominance. Tell me, why is the government so afraid of freedom of speech and assembly? I’d say it: They are afraid of The Truth!
A child does NOT ask to be born. Families vary in the way they choose to raise their children. The main thing: Parents to love and be responsible for the well being and wholesome upbringing of their children. How this is so is for the family themeselves. Confucianist tenet or Asian Values as the late PM Lee Kuan Yew called it had been adulterated by him all because he wanted little or no part in looking after the old and frail. Thus the campaign on ‘filial piety’ and over time the REAL brainwashing of the minds of the citizenry take hold. It is the government’s responsibility to care for the elderly, frail and vulnerable. Many who are able to care for their parents or elderly take it upon themselves to do so.
I’d stand firm with the writer, Ms Kirsten Han. She has righteousness on her side. SPECIFICALLY on the subject matter of her article.
It is all in order that we will have to agree to disagree.
@ Sharifah Smith : Oops!
I think you have made a mistake.
We are singing from the same song sheet and with the same tune!
Naturally, I am with you All The Way.
P.S. The INJUSTICE, self-indulgence and criminal wrongdoings of the government are appalling!
Sorry friends, all this hype to seek more freedom is just an expression of personal discontent. Many from Singapore and outside can express dissent. But we still need a government to take moral responsibility. We elected them and they are acting what majority believes. Be happy in what we do, but everyone has a red line. Be it government or people. By the way I am 66 and got my knowledge from ‘NUS’ national university of the street.
I am foreigner.
My two-cent migth not be important at all fir Sungapore.
But why apply a fix to something that is not broken?
Daniel Ong In 1964, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy speaking to a group of law students at the the University of Pennsylvania on May 6, 1964, Kennedy observed: “About one-fifth of the people are against everything all of the time.” — The PAP won about 70% of the votes in the last General Eelections, So whatever good they are doing for ithe people, the Singapore leaders should expect 20%-30% who can never be satisfied. Cheers! Best compliments of the season to all.
Daniel Ong
Looks like you are not a young man either and I presume you are a parent as well and may have old parents to look after too.
The revealing and comforting fact is that we are at consensus – and what a relief – that you and I can agree to disagree in open forum – for that is the very epitome and the aegis of freedom of expression. That is good.
Let me explain the true facts of civilised politics, using us as the convenient illustration. Accordingly, note that obliquely and indirectly through our dialogue or debate or exchange the Government and the Parliamentarians can have the transparent opportunity to gauge and glean for themselves the merits and disenchantment across the entire spectrum of the myriad views of the population.
But out of respect for the Government and their authority and to ensure orderly governance unless the Government blatantly breaks the law (then sue them or not vote for them in the next election) no member of the public when in disagreement with the Government should be directly confrontational with or frustrate or demoralise and embarrass the Government in public – because simply put, an ordinary member of the public is not on the floor of the Parliament. The streets are not the place to rouse up dissent and rebellion against the Government. Due process requires that they be voted out by majority vote, through the ballot box.
The authorised forum therefore for debating directly on the subject of governance lie solely on the respective elected members of parliament at their interface in Parliament.
That is why the right of assembly is predicated first on voters having the right to freely assemble without fear or intimidation to vote for their choice of representative voices in Parliament. We do not therefore have open unbridled democracy at large! That is a total misconception!
The word freedom does not actually mean free to do whatever you individually wish. It does not mean freedom to scream and shout and heckle like riotous subversives and saboteurs. That is the modus operandi of the CIA and communist cadres.
We have in fact a Westminster system of Government. That is not synonymous with democracy or open freedom. Our Singaporean democracy does not mean anything more than that we have a democratically elected Parliament. Simply put, our form of civilised body politic entails that the majority view prevails at the election booths and subsequently on the floors of Parliament.
Unconstrained and unfettered and unauthorised assembly by anyone is simply a form of anarchy! It is like students running amok at school because they do not like the curriculum set by the principal. And any form of anarchy whether it be minor or major is not the type of civilised freedom of expression and assembly entailed by the Westminster System. You have been watching too many American movies!
Politics are for politicians. Do not pretend to be a politician. Do not be like a spectator at a stadium telling the skipper how to shoot goals or at a Grand Prix telling the Formulae 1 Driver how to race his car! An ordinary of the public member is like a ‘spectator’. You want to be a politician then by analogy be the ‘skipper’ or the ‘Grand Prix Driver’.
Freedom of expression is firstly a freedom of choice and not and must never be automatically assumed to be total freedom to open one’s big fat mouth willy nilly!
James Kwok hard to believe someone would use a personal attack against someone who refers to those who disagree with him as bananas.
During colonial times LKY and others bristled at the paternalistic demeaning attitude of the West against people in Singapore and the East. Among the things the anti-colonialists hated most was an attitude that Asians were not ready to govern themselves and that, as you say, their "Western concepts of freedom of expression or individual rights" were foreign to Asian peoples and incompatible with local culture. Sad to see the same thinking, tools and even expressions used by Singapore’s elites to manintain a monopoly on power. What may be more disturning is the claim that the very same tools used by colonizers to oppress were, somehow, the keys to Singapores success as a Republic – instead of the hard work of the people and their own organic efforts to move forward. This is not meanto to diminish the reputation or achievements of the PAP – they are impressive – yet the PAP diminishes its own achievement by such pettiness as reported. FInally, your use of offensive, racist names (bananas) weakens your argument and sounds arrogant and offensive.
William Ryan
I appreciate your interest in Singapore news.
But it would be preferable and more prudent (unless you are a citizen) if you do not get embroiled in an intra-citizen debate about their Government.
I for one have totally no interest in how other countries run their internal affairs, whatever their ideology. I certainly will not comment on the politics in the U.S. or the U.K. or Europe and similar. Trade and business yes, particularly how it affects Asian exports worldwide.
As to ‘bananas’ it is not racist, it is me a Chinese calling another Chinese who is stupid enough to think that he can transform himself into an Englishman or similar. I used to tell my cousin off for trying his utmost to look, sing, talk, dance like Elvis. It was like a cat trying to be a dog!
Would you not think it would be absurd and peculiar if you thought you could transform yourself into a Bruce Lee or Chow Yun Fatt?
If I said that I hated you or that you are inferior because you are an Englishman or a whiteman than I am a racist. But I just want you to be as you are, and I to be as I am, we cannot be equal as in being the same, but we can be equal by being in equanimity with and to each other. And in that sense what you do in your country, and in your home, and in your family, I respect that you folks have your own culture traditions and mores. I would not be so presumptuous that I can judge you on my Chinese values.
Vince Cheok respectfully, I have more than a passing interest in Singapore news. Being a SIngaporean does not uniquely qualify one to comment on things of interest in your great republic. Your choices in those matters are entirely yours. I will note that you do not point out for criticism any of my central points – only my ethiniciity and nationality as well as my criticism of the use of the word banana. Point taken, Vince Cheong, banana may not be a racist term per se, but I do stand by my assertion that it is offensive (and unfair, immature, crude) and undermines your overall tone. In the end you seek to invalidate difffering viewpoints not on their own terms but by your perceptions, which may or may not be correct, about the people that express them. As an intelligent, experienced man, as you obviously are, you do this at your own loss.
Vince Cheok No, I am not from a city state Republic where such things might be possible. Indeed, SIngapore is unique and I am quite familiar with its great qualities. I also agree that matters like this need to be settled with free and fair elections. However,the points of debate need to be debated in a free and fair manner using a free and fair press and an electorate empowered to speak their mind. Otherwise the elections are neither free nor fair. The Singaporean author of this article reports on a rather heavy handed response to what many would think of as fair criticism and your response to an article "No Dissedent Thoughts…" is to call the author a Banana and question her integrity and grasp of native values. No dissident thoughts indeed!
William Ryan
OK! By Jove! You have finally got it!
Singapore is unique! It is also uniquely vulnerable and fragile. I know! I should know! I am from a business background. As are most of the other equally hardworking citizens having to make money from entreport trade, as ‘middle man’ or ‘brokers’.
All my working life it was just work, work, work. No time for enjoyment except eating out or window shopping with family. Just work work work for me and education study study of the kids.
It was more like a daily economic financial battlefront than the easy life we read and got to know about that exists in Western countries.
Why I call the author a ‘banana’ – she feels she has the luxury to worry about the thing she she writes about – when she knows ****all about the shop floor of hard slog and hard knocks.
She should just put her shoulders to the wheels like the rest of us in Singapore to keep the ship afloat! And every year then bar is raised higher and higher!
So do her proselytising in the West. Here we have not only to keep a ship afloat but to sail full steam ahead!
Tell me have you ever seen worker ants stop to question their elected captain of the ship on minor matters that does not affect the ‘price of eggs’?
Where is that fabled soft side that PM Lee so admired in others?
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.
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.
Vince Cheok I salute you sir. From the Philippines
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.
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.
(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.)
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: …
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