Well, for the record, I mentioned another case - the guy who got arrested for demonstrating in front of the British and American embassies. I already explained that demonstrations are not illegal provided it is done in Hong Lim Park where the Speakers' Corner is located. This is to prevent riots as recently happened in Chancellorsville over Robert E Lee's statue. But the attention seeker deliberately did it illegally, to get himself in jail.neverfail wrote: ↑Mon Dec 04, 2017 2:06 pmThanks cass. You might have guessed that I posted this link to a recent Asia Times article to sound out your opinion. I have no set one of my own. You put up a good case with reference to Singapore's fragile security situation.
But cass, the article mentions a number of other dissidents whose activism seems to have more legitimacy (as distinct from legal sanction) than blogger Yee's; yet you mention only this soft target blowhard as though his case is supposed to bring disrepute down on all of the others:
Since you ask, i will comment on the others as well. The most interesting case involves that Lee Scion and Harvard Fellow, who is our PM's nephew. He wrote on his Facebook page that the judiciary in Singapore is compliant. That is true. The PAP has been in power for so many years. The party in power gets to appoint the judges. So it has appointed PAP supporters.
This puts opposition members at a disadvantage when they are involved in litigation against a PAP member. Our judges generally have the same worldview. So you get very consistent and predictable judgements. We are spared the spectacle of what happened in the US over Trump's travel ban. The Democrat dominated 9th Circuit Court declared the ban as illegal, only to be overturned by the Republican dominated Supreme Court.
Bias is something found all over the world. It depends on the world view or ideology of the person making the judgements. Despite its bias in political cases, Singapore ranks 9th for rule of law, according to the World Justice Project, which reflects well on its courts. By the way, Canada ranks 11; Australia ranks 12 and the US ranks 18. After Muellers' witch hunt, I think US ranking is going to drop.
Finally, there is Jolovan Wham, the social worker who ran afoul of the law. Again, like Yan Jun, he could have avoided arrest if he had organized his demonstrations in Hong Lim Park where the Speakers' Corner is. Wham is an idealist. So I got to admire his courage of his convictions. But I have mixed feelings. Wham presses all the leftist buttons I detest. For example, he campaigns for the abolishment of the death penalty and claims that low wage temporary foreign workers are oppressed.
Wham and his friends would hold candlelight vigils outside the prison whenever some drug pusher gets hung. He does not think of the lives ruined by drugs or the people killed by overdose. Suppressing drugs also avoids the warfare of drug gangs which will affect innocent bystanders. Like so many leftists, Wham cares more for the criminals than for the victims.
Wham has been warned many times to stop. If he wants to protest, he can go to Hong Lim. My speculation is that Wham is frustrated for the lack of support for his pet causes. Singaporeans, in general, do not care for such things because they are too busy trying to get rich. The spirit of capitalism is too strong for there to be much interest in such foolish idealism. Perhaps in frustration, Wham sought arrest in the hope of drawing attention to his causes.
Yes, I agree. Unfortunately, the government has a lot of discretion on what is hate speech. I am not happy with what I perceive as a double standard. The government appears to be harsher when Muslims are offended by non-Muslims, as in Yee's case, then when non-Muslims are offended by Muslims.(quote) 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.) (unquote)
Two points: it is your government that decides what is "hate speech" and what is otherwise just harmless sounding off. There is a danger here that the top honchos in the ruling party routinely abuse these sweeping powers to stamp out any sign of discontent before it can coalesce into an opposition movement that endangers it's monopoly grip on power - on the pretext of national security and social harmony. Are you not concerned about this and if not why not?
Yee was jailed for a month for saying mostly accurate things about Islam. He did not portray them as enemies to be overcome. He was just making fun of Islam and claimed that ISIS is following the Koran. (He is right.)
This Muslim preacher, on the other hand, led his congregation in prayer calling for the defeat of Jews and Christians.
Excerpt from link:
This is the standard jihadist ideology of the sort that ISIS practices. The imam sees Jews and Christians as God's enemies who must be defeated in a holy war. In my view, this is far worse than Yee's mocking of Islam. One mocks, the other is a call for war. Yee got jail. But the Imam got only a $4,000 fine and was deported back to his country.
I think that the government knows that many Muslims agree with the Imam. Sending him to jail may provoke violence among his supporters.
The sensible Trump administration rejected Yee's application. But some leftist went to court to help Yee get in. Yee won the court case. It must have been a Democratic judge. And the left is so hypocritical. They always level accusations of hate speech to shut up their conservative opponents. That's what Yee was guilty of - hate speech. The only reason why the left supported Yee in this case is that they detest Singapore for being a show case of capitalism -low taxes and government spending.(Yee was recently granted political asylum in America.) really? I doubt whether the US authorities would have done that lightly.
When Trump called for Muslim immigrants to be banned, it was hate speech to leftists. When Yee said things like the Koran came from Allah's assh...e, they welcomed him - no doubt to poke the eye of Singapore.
