Singabloodypore

Singapore (dpa) – Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is buying all the magazine and online titles of Hardware Zone, which operates a website featuring new electronic products and reviews, SPH said in a published statement Saturday.

The website, which started in 1999 as a hobby for the co-founders, currently has operations in Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, China and Australia.

Co-founders Eugene Low and Jackie Lee were 22-year-old undergraduates at the National University of Singapore when they started Hardware Zone.

The purchase price is 7.1 million Singapore dollars (4.5 million US dollars).

“Hardware Zone’s online magazine business strategy will complement SPH Magazines’ strong print magazine business,” said the statement in The Straits Times.

The acquisition is scheduled to be completed around November 1.

[Reaction from Forumers...]

SPH have control of all major papers and magazines….
anything from straits times – business times – zao bao – berita harian
all the way to men’s health, citibella, maxim…

the loooming issue here is actually bigger than any potential change in “forumer” privilege or rights in speech freedom but the monopoly control of local media offline and online in singapore. by Radish

Singapore

A poster that mini-Lee might want to print out and post on his office wall from asiapundit.

Or how about this one I created at despair.com …

Singapore

Singapore Democratic Party

Following the landmark protest at Hong Lim Park during the WB-IMF Meeting, a workshop will be held on 15 October 2006, Sunday, under the Empower Singaporeans Seminar Series.

This day-long seminar is tailored for the Singaporean who yearns justice and democracy, but doesn’t know how to go about working towards it.

The seminar, starting at 9 am and ending at 6 pm, will feature lectures, interactive discussions, debates, and role-playing on topics such as human rights, the development of democracy in Asia, and a history of repression in Singapore.

Participants will also learn about the principles and practice of Nonviolence, and how it can be applied to Singapore.

The activists at the Empower Singaporeans Rally and March on 16 September will be on hand to conduct some of the seminar discussions. This is your chance to talk to them and learn how they overcame their fears.

Learn how you can break through your crippling sense of powerlessness, fear and isolation. Discover the courage trapped in your hearts and unlock the shackles that imprison your minds.

Don’t just sit by and criticize, channel your energy and ideas into constructive action. Join us at the seminar.

The seminar is open to all Singaporeans. To attend please register by sending us an email (speakup@singaporedemocrat.org). Details of the seminar will be sent to you if your registration is successful.

Please register early as places are limited.

Singapore

Singapore Democratic Party

Following the landmark protest at Hong Lim Park during the WB-IMF Meeting, a workshop will be held on 15 October 2006, Sunday, under the Empower Singaporeans Seminar Series.

This day-long seminar is tailored for the Singaporean who yearns justice and democracy, but doesn’t know how to go about working towards it.

The seminar, starting at 9 am and ending at 6 pm, will feature lectures, interactive discussions, debates, and role-playing on topics such as human rights, the development of democracy in Asia, and a history of repression in Singapore.

Participants will also learn about the principles and practice of Nonviolence, and how it can be applied to Singapore.

The activists at the Empower Singaporeans Rally and March on 16 September will be on hand to conduct some of the seminar discussions. This is your chance to talk to them and learn how they overcame their fears.

Learn how you can break through your crippling sense of powerlessness, fear and isolation. Discover the courage trapped in your hearts and unlock the shackles that imprison your minds.

Don’t just sit by and criticize, channel your energy and ideas into constructive action. Join us at the seminar.

The seminar is open to all Singaporeans. To attend please register by sending us an email (speakup@singaporedemocrat.org). Details of the seminar will be sent to you if your registration is successful.

Please register early as places are limited.

Singapore’s ‘Martyr,’ Chee Soon Juan
July/August 2006
By Hugo Restall

Striding into the Chinese restaurant of Singapore’s historic Fullerton Hotel, Chee Soon Juan hardly looks like a dangerous revolutionary. Casually dressed in a blue shirt with a gold pen clipped to the pocket, he could pass as just another mild-mannered, apolitical Singaporean. Smiling, he courteously apologizes for being late—even though it is only two minutes after the appointed time.

Nevertheless, according to prosecutors, this same man is not only a criminal, but a repeat offender. The opposition party leader has just come from a pre-trial conference at the courthouse, where he faces eight counts of speaking in public without a permit.

He has already served numerous prison terms for this and other political offenses, including eight days in March for denying the independence of the judiciary. He expects to go to jail again later this year.

Mr. Chee does not seem too perturbed about this, but it drives Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong up the wall. Asked about his government’s persecution of the opposition during a trip to New Zealand last month, Mr. Lee launched into a tirade of abuse against Mr. Chee. “He’s a liar, he’s a cheat, he’s deceitful, he’s confrontational, it’s a destructive form of politics designed not to win elections in Singapore but to impress foreign supporters and make himself out to be a martyr,” Mr. Lee ranted. “He’s deliberately going against the rules because he says, ‘I’m like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi. I want to be a martyr.’”

Coming at the end of a trip in which the prime minister essentially got a free ride on human rights from his hosts—New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark didn’t even raise the issue—this outburst showed a lack of self-control and acumen. Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the man who many believe still runs Singapore and who is the current prime minister’s father, has said much the same things about Mr. Chee—“a political gangster, a liar and a cheat”—but that was at home, and in the heat of an election campaign.

Mr. Chee smiles when it’s suggested that he must be doing something right. “Every time he says something stupid like that, I think to myself, the worst thing to happen would be to be ignored. That would mean we’re not making any headway,” he agrees.

But one charge made by the government does stick: Mr. Chee is not terribly concerned about election results. Which is just as well, because his Singapore Democratic Party did not do very well in the May 6 polls. It would be foolish, he suggests, for an opposition party in Singapore to pin its hopes on gaining one, or perhaps two, seats in parliament. He is aiming for a much bigger goal: bringing down the city-state’s one-party system of government. His weapon is a campaign of civil disobedience against laws designed to curtail democratic freedoms.

“You don’t vote out a dictatorship,” he says. “And basically that’s what Singapore is, albeit a very sophisticated one. It’s not possible for us to effect change just through the ballot box. They’ve got control of everything else around us.” Instead what’s needed is a coalition of civil society and political society coming together and demanding change—a color revolution for Singapore.

So far Mr. Chee doesn’t seem to be getting much, if any traction. While many Singaporeans don’t particularly like the PAP’s arrogant style of government, the ruling party has succeeded in depoliticizing the population to the extent that anybody who presses them to take action to make a change is regarded with resentment. And in a climate of fear—Mr. Chee lost his job as a psychology lecturer at the national university soon after entering opposition politics—a reluctance to get involved is hardly surprising.

Why is all this oppression necessary in a peaceful and prosperous country like Singapore where citizens otherwise enjoy so many freedoms? Mr. Chee has his own theory that the answer lies with strongman Lee Kuan Yew himself: “Why is he still so afraid? I honestly think that through the years he has accumulated enough skeletons in his closet that he knows that when he is gone, his son and the generations after him will have a price to pay. If we had parliamentary debates where the opposition could pry and ask questions, I think he is actually afraid of something like that.”

That raises the question of whether Singapore deserves its reputation for squeaky-clean government. A scandal involving the country’s biggest charity, the National Kidney Foundation, erupted in 2004 when it turned out that its Chief Executive T.T. Durai was not only drawing a $357,000 annual salary, but the charity was paying for his first-class flights, maintenance on his Mercedes, and gold-plated fixtures in his private office bathroom.

The scandal was a gift for the opposition, which naturally raised questions about why the government didn’t do a better job of supervising the highly secretive NKF, whose patron was the wife of former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong (she called Mr. Durai’s salary “peanuts”). But it had wider implications too. The government controls huge pools of public money in the Central Provident Fund and the Government of Singapore Investment Corp., both of which are highly nontransparent. It also controls spending on the public housing most Singaporeans live in, and openly uses the funds for refurbishing apartment blocks as a bribe for districts that vote for the ruling party. Singaporeans have no way of knowing whether officials are abusing their trust as Mr. Durai did.

It gets worse. Mr. Durai’s abuses only came to light because he sued the Straits Times newspaper for libel over an article detailing some of his perks. Why was Mr. Durai so confident he could win a libel suit when the allegations against him were true? Because he had done it before. The NKF won a libel case in 1998 against defendants who alleged it had paid for first-class flights for Mr. Durai. This time, however, he was up against a major bulwark of the regime, Singapore Press Holdings; its lawyers uncovered the truth.

Singaporean officials have a remarkable record of success in winning libel suits against their critics. The question then is, how many other libel suits have Singapore’s great and good wrongly won, resulting in the cover-up of real misdeeds? And are libel suits deliberately used as a tool to suppress questioning voices?

The bottling up of dissent conceals pressures and prevents conflicts from being resolved. For instance, extreme sensitivity over the issue of race relations means that the persistence of discrimination is a taboo topic. Yet according to Mr. Chee it is a problem that should be debated so that it can be better resolved. “The harder they press now, the stronger will be the reaction when he’s no longer around,” he says of Lee Kuan Yew.

The paternalism of the PAP also rankles, especially since foreigners get more consideration than locals. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund will hold their annual meeting in Singapore this fall, and have been trying to convince the authorities to allow the usual demonstrations to take place. The likely result is that international NGO groups will be given a designated area to scream and shout. “So we have a situation here where locals don’t have the right to protest in their own country, while foreigners are able to do that,” Mr. Chee marvels. Likewise, Singaporeans can’t organize freely into unions to negotiate wages; instead a National Wages Council sets salaries with input from the corporate sector, including foreign chambers of commerce.

All these tensions will erupt when strongman Lee Kuan Yew dies. Mr. Chee notes that the ruling party is so insecure that Singapore’s founder has been unable to step back from front-line politics. The PAP still needs the fear he inspires in order to keep the population in line. Power may have officially passed to his son, Lee Hsien Loong, but even supporters privately admit that the new prime minister doesn’t inspire confidence.

During the election, Prime Minister Lee made what should have been a routine attack on multiparty democracy: “Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I’m going to spend all my time thinking what’s the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters’ votes, how can I solve this week’s problem and forget about next year’s challenges?” But of course the ominous phrases “buy votes” and “fix them” stuck out. That is the kind of mistake, Mr. Chee suggests, Lee Sr. would not make.

“He’s got a kind of intelligence that would serve you very well when you put a problem in front of him,” he says of the prime minister. “But when it comes to administration or political leadership, when you really need to be media savvy and motivate people, I think he is very lacking in that area. And his father senses it as well.”

However, the elder Mr. Lee’s death—he is now 82—is a necessary but not sufficient condition for change. Another big factor is how civil society is able to use new technologies to bypass PAP control over information and free speech. The government has tried to stifle political filmmaking, blogging and podcasting. Singapore Rebel, a 2004 film about Mr. Chee by independent artist Martyn See, was banned but is widely available on the Internet.

Meanwhile, pressure for Singapore to remain competitive in the region has sparked debate about the government’s dominant role in the economy. Can a top-down approach promote creativity and independent thinking? The need for transparency and accountability also means that Singapore will have to change. That is the source of Mr. Chee’s optimism in the face of all his setbacks: “I realize that Singapore is not at that level yet. But we’ve got to start somewhere. And I’m prepared to see this out, in the sense that in the next five, 10, 15 years, time is on our side. We need to continue to organize and educate and encourage. And it will come.”

He doesn’t dwell on his personal tribulations, but mentions in passing selling his self-published books on the street. That is his primary source of income to feed his family, along with the occasional grant. As to the charge of wanting to be a martyr, once he started dissenting, he found it impossible to stop in good conscience. “The more you got involved, the more you found out what they’re capable of, it steels you, so you say, ‘No, I will not back down.’ It makes you more determined.”

Perhaps it’s in his genes. One of Mr. Chee’s daughters is old enough that she had to be told that her father was going to prison. She stood up before her class and announced, “My papa is in jail, but he didn’t do anything wrong. People have just been unfair to him.”

Mr. Restall is editor of the REVIEW.

Singapore

Mr Jaya Gibson [his official site] has also removed an article from his blog that refered to his ‘assisting with administrative matters’ with M. Ravi, which I refered to in an earlier post this week.

Authorities do not allow British Epoch Times reporter into country to cover trial of Falungong activists

Straits Times
Thursday, September 28, 2006

By Khushwant Singh

A British journalist who flew in from London on Sunday was denied entry at Changi Airport and asked to leave.

Mr Jaya Gibson works for New York-based The Epoch Times, which is strongly supportive of the Falungong movement.

The Immigration and Checkpoints Authority said that Mr Gibson was ineligible for a visit pass, but did not give any reason.

He left on Monday.

Mr Gibson was in Singapore last month to cover the trial of two Falungong followers who were charged with displaying insulting words on a banner opposite the Chinese Embassy in Tanglin Road on July 20.

When the trial was adjourned, Mr Gibson left for Geneva to attend a human rights conference, said Mr Sng Beng Kok, a photojournalist with The Epoch Times.

Mr Gibson had also been assisting the Falungong pair’s lawyer, Mr M. Ravi, with administrative matters, Mr Sng told Agence France-Presse news agency.

The Epoch Times focuses on reporting alleged human rights abuses by China’s Communist Party, especially its crackdown on Falungong, which Beijing outlawed as an “evil cult” in 1999.

The newspaper has been circulating here since 2004.

Mr Ravi has been hospitalised and the two Falungong practitioners on trial have till Monday to decide if they wish to hire a new lawyer.

Date Posted: 9/28/2006

Singapore

AFX News Limited

09.28.2006, 08:21 AM

SINGAPORE (XFN-ASIA) – The government said it has banned the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine after it failed to comply with media regulations.

‘The Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts has revoked with effect from 28 September 2006 the approval given to the Far Eastern Economic Review (FEER) for sale or distribution in Singapore,’ a government press release said.

It added that it was also an offense to import or possess copies of the Hong Kong-based magazine for sale or distribution in the city-state.

The move comes two weeks after revelations that Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father Lee Kuan Yew had filed defamation suits against the FEER.

The Lees filed the lawsuits in August against editor Hugo Restall and Hong Kong-based Review Publishing, alleging the pair had been defamed in a July article based on an interview with opposition politician Chee Soon Juan.

it-rc/sst

Singapore

According to this report a third of those present were already blogging so it would be great to hear some of their interpretations of what happened. Post a link to your blog in the comment section, please.

PM wants them to make noise but they’re just finding their voice

Thursday • September 28, 2006

Christie Loh
christie@newstoday.com.sg
• News Analysis

It takes a while to warm up young Singaporeans — even with the Prime Minister egging them on to jump up and take a shot in open dialogue.

“This evening, I’ve been trying hard to get people to put their hands up to speak. But some shy,” quipped Mr Lee Hsien Loong, 54, at last Saturday’s forum with 220 youth, aged 17 to 30, at the Supreme Court.

This was the 12th time a prime minister of the country had held an annual dialogue with young Singaporeans from schools, voluntary welfare organisations, the civil service and the media. For Mr Lee, the exchange fitted in with his priority, since becoming premier in 1994, to galvanise those born after 1965.

Then, he had called on the “P65″, or post-65, group — which makes up about half the nation’s current population — to step up and shape its future. On Saturday, he urged those not happy with things not to just up and leave but to “make a nuisance” of themselves until they had fixed it.

It was a rare event to witness the engagement between prime minister and youth; for the first time, the normally closed-door dialogue was open to media coverage. What was also different was a “pre-dialogue session” held the week before, where younger Members of Parliament and the participants brainstormed which 12 questions to ask the PM and by whom.

Except that Mr Lee didn’t quite stick to the script when the day came. Instead of first answering the set questions and then taking follow-ups “if there was time”, he often halted the flow of the 100-minute session to push for more spontaneity. Such as when he stopped co-moderator Minister Vivian Balakrishnan from moving on to the next topic because Mr Lee wanted to hear more views on race relations.

The room waited. Eventually, a Muslim teacher asked what the out-of-bounds markers are when it comes to religion and race.

“I think we’re already discussing OB markers,” a smiling Mr Lee said, before addressing her question on why schools in multi-ethnic Singapore prefer an open “common space” to one for each religious group.

Mr Lee wanted more crossfire. So he heard a girl’s lament that her years in schools dominated by Chinese students had led to an ignorance about other cultures. Swiftly, Mr Lee whipped out a sheet listing cross-cultural activities organised by some of the schools.

No issue was taboo, from the impact of foreign talent to the rise of new media. The openness impressed participants who, afterwards, applauded Mr Lee for his “warmth”, “clear, satisfactory answers” and being “not condescending”.

Some voiced fears of foreign talent taking jobs away from the locals, a concern that had cropped during a string of recent dialogues between youths and P65 MPs. Mr Lee reiterated that foreign talents help enlarge the economy, creating more jobs for the locals.

The twin topics of new media and political expression took up about 40 minutes of the session.

Inquisitive youths wanted to know if Mr Lee’s “older colleagues” would be able to accept an era of political expression with fewer boundaries. His reply: More young parliamentarians will be brought in to “do the talking”, but opening up has to be done step by step because “politics is a serious sort of business”.

What of the Government’s plans to engage the young through their increasingly preferred medium of expression — blogging? Mr Lee’s response was that while engagement by way of new media was necessary, “we have to experiment to see how it works”. For example, should he start blogging to reach the young, he asked. He wasn’t sure, but he would do it only if he had something “sincere and substantial” to share.

Turning the tables, Mr Lee then asked how many blogged. About a third raised their hands. At the same time, many participants started marching up to the mike to proffer their views on, what else, speaking up.

The lively exchange on youth expression heartened Mr Teo Ser Luck, parliamentary secretary for the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, who told Today: “If they want political freedom, it’s because they want to have more say. If they didn’t want to speak up or if the blogs were not active, then I’d be worried.”

But encouraging as Saturday’s session might be for Government-youth engagement, Mr Teo is only too aware of a much larger pool of youths that has not made it to any dialogue session.

Those who attend such “formal” settings, Mr Teo said, are the “converts” and “good youths who do their homework”. Such as the polytechnic student who stumped him by asking, during the pre-dialogue session, if the $1,800 income bracket for S-Pass applicants (skilled middle-level workers) was too low.

But many more don’t think about such things. “What should we do? Go to the void deck?” he asked, wondering if activities at housing estates would work.

For now, Mr Teo and his fellow P65 MPs can take heart in the email that have been streaming in, asking how one could take part in the youth dialogues — and they are “not from the usual-suspect schools”.

“They’re warming up to us,” noted Mr Teo.

What’s your view? Email us at news@newstoday.com.sg

Singapore