Ladies and Gentlemen,
Over this long drawn out battle between Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore and Gopalan Nair, which started on that fateful day May 26, 2008, the day I set foot in Singapore up till now, the battle is still raging as strongly as ever, with Gopalan Nair in Fremont, California. Gopalan Nair has decisively won and Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore has lost. There can be no doubt about it.
This is a battle of justice against injustice. Free speech against repression and bullying. A man's right to be free instead of being in fear. This is a battle which Singapore's dictator Lee Kuan Yew cannot possibly win.
Lets look at the history of events.
1. After I write the blog criticizing Singapore's Belinda Ang Saw Ean for shamelessly abusing the law to please Lee Kuan Yew and Son and punishing Dr. Chee Soon Juan, I am arrested on May 31, 2008 and spend 8 days in solitary confinement, tortured by Lee Kuan Yew's police through interrogations and humiliation day and night 24 hours non stop, yet they fail to make me confess to crimes I did not commit. Gopalan Nair wins, Lee Kuan Yew loses.
2. Then after 8 days they bring me to court hoping that I will plead guilty and they can pack me off to America once and for all, but no, I plead not guilty, forcing them to keep me back in Singapore for 4 months in preparation for trial in the High Court. In the meantime publicity both in Singapore and abroad continues to mount and my case of arresting a blogger becomes a cause celebre, thus discrediting Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore and exposing them once more as a country that denies human rights and free speech. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
3. While I am out on bail in Singapore, I continue to blog writing about my case, with more and more Singaporeans being interested in the treatment I get at the hands of this regime in Singapore. Lee Kuan Yew loses and Gopalan Nair wins.
4. On 4th of July 2008 while walking along a street near Little India, I am accosted by plain clothes policemen and falsely accused of disorderly behaviour and other nonsense. The testimony of the police is bizarre. They claim I knocked repeatedly on their police car, while they were in it, yet they could not say who did it. They stop me several hundred feet away form their car, then accuse me of of disorderly behaviour. They claim at least 25 bystanders saw my disorderly behaviour, yet the police were unable to get even one person to testify. Only a series of police officers testified parroting what the earlier officer had just said in a well rehearsed fashion, before a judge who is Lee Kuan Yew's puppet. I drag the case on for 18 days. In the end predictably I am convicted. But the spectacle of this trial is daily reported in the press. A small time charge becomes the daily topic of discussion among Singaporeans. Wherever I walk in Singapore, people approach me and greet me. Overnight I become a hero, and Lee Kuan Yew is seen as the bully punishing a victim who simply refuses to give up. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
5. During this trial I force every single police officer to lie under oath in court, because that is what they have to do to keep their jobs. As humans their conscience is affected and they are forced to live with their lies. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
6. Then comes the High Court trial involving my criticizing Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean for shamelessly abusing her position as a judge for Lee Kuan Yew's political ends to punish Dr. Chee Soon Juan. The trial goes on for 8 days, I plead not guilty, the government spends a great deal of money to have me convicted, eventually I am found guilty and ordered to jail for 3 months. Here again the Lee Kuan Yew administration, through the wide publicity in the press, is seen once again as a bully that goes after a blogger for what he wrote on the Internet. International human rights organizations condemn Lee Kuan Yew's government and equates them with countries like Burma and North Korea. I become even more famous and seen as the victim of Lee Kuan Yew's excesses. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
7. While in jail, and just before being released Lee Kuan Yew's police bring fresh charges of contempt of court against me. Not wanting to spend any more time in jail which I definitely will if I pleaded not guilty, in accordance with Lee Kuan Yew's prosecutors, I apologize in court and promise to take down 2 blog posts critical of the Singapore legal system relating to statements I made in court in the disorderly behaviour trial. In reliance of my apologies and my guarantee to take down the blog posts, my imprisonment is not extended and I am permitted to leave the country after I am released from jail on Nov 26, 2008.
8. Immediately upon setting foot in USA on Nov 26, 2008, I immediately retract my apologies to the Singapore judge, re-state that I stand by my criticism of the legal system and the judiciary of Singapore and re-post the blog posts that I had taken down. This is a slap in the face for Singapore judge Leslie Chew before whom I made the apology and gave the guarantee. I tell the world how much contempt and disgust I have with Lee Kuan Yew's corrupt judges and his administration of justice. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
9. Seeing that Gopalan Nair is just making a fool of the Lee Kuan Yew administration and his state controlled judges, and realizing that there is nothing they can do with my presence outside their jurisdiction, so they retaliate. They get their Singapore Law Society which in reality is under Lee's control to commence Disciplinary proceedings against me in Singapore to have me disbarred in their island. Their pettiness and mean spiritedness shows. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
10. Near the end of last year, the Singapore Law Society commence disciplinary proceedings against me to have me disbarred in Singapore. Had I been in Singapore, I would not have been able to write anything critical of them about these proceedings. If I did, I would have been arrested and thrown in jail. But I am not in Singapore. I write every single happening in these proceedings, expose the fact that they refuse me any meaningful means to defend myself in these Singapore proceedings leaving the Singapore authorities no choice but to proceed against me in absentia.
I expose their refusal to provide the court transcripts that I need to defend myself, demanding that I pay for it myself. In any case, they would probably forge and change the written record to suit their purposes. The Singapore Tribunal simply refuses to provide any assistance about anything merely telling me to contact third party agencies to get whatever I need. They do not care to provide any instruction on getting permission to travel to Singapore except until the last minute, 2 days before the hearing on April 30, 2010 which is postponed to May 5, 2010. I am able to document and record every single instance of the abuse of process by the Singapore Tribunal in these proceedings. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew is put to shame.
11. Up till now, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore is forced to spend several hundreds of thousands of dollars in judicial time and police time in all that they have done so far, running into reams and reams of paper and valuable time and expense. It has turned out to be a very expensive ride for them which has still not stopped and promises to go on for a long time ahead. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
12. The reader can look forward to even more almost daily reports of the abuse of the legal system and their corrupt judiciary in these blog posts. Gopalan Nair wins and Lee Kuan Yew loses.
It does appear that the former Attorney General of Singapore, Walter Woon Cheong Ming, who has since been fired, whose idea it probably was to have me arrested thoroughly misunderstood my likely reactions. Perhaps he thought that just like every other helpless Singaporean under his grip, I too would simply roll over and submit to his aggression. He seems to have misunderstood Gopalan Nair
Gopalan Nair
39737 Paseo Padre Parkway, Suite A1
Fremont, CA 94538, USA
Tel: 510 657 6107
Fax: 510 657 6914
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Blog: http://singaporedissident.blogspot.com/
Your letters are welcome. We reserve the right to publish your letters. Please Email your letters to nair.gopalan@yahoo.com And if you like what I write, please tell your friends. You will be helping democracy by distributing this widely. This blog not only gives information, it dispels
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2 comments:
D'you know, your blog is certainly the first time in 50 years that Lee's Stalinist habits have been held up for public scrutiny as events unfold, blow-by-blow. It cannot make for comfortable reading. Hitherto, his iron grip on Singapore's media and the complaisant judiciary ensured he could get away with murder if he chose to. Quite the old-fashioned tin-pot dictator, in fact.
The likes of Lim Chin Siong and the ISD detainees and opposition figures like JBJ, Tan Wah Piow and Francis Seow never really stood much of a chance to protest the absence of due process. Without the power of the Internet they were mincemeat - easily silenced, bullied unmercifully, driven into exile with Singaporeans little the wiser. So their stories could not be told unfolding in real time and as a result the historical record, though well documented, lost the impact of immediacy.
Not so with yourself and Dr. Chee today, thank goodness. Even on a little matter like letters to the editor, we would probably never have known how blatant was the editing and ill-will of the Straits Times Forum editor towards letters from Dr. Chee had it not been for the SDP website immediately giving us the heads-up. That makes all the difference since there's nothing so stale as yesterday's news.
As I said before, your writing style is never pedestrian and it's hugely entertaining to have the priceless reputations and hilarious 'integrity' of the octogenarian and his humourless Singapore stooges relentlessly dissected and held up to public view day after day as the flip-flops occur. He's swimming naked, the tide's gone out and Gopalan Nair's pointing and laughing. Keep it up!
When LKY dies, will they build him a mausoleum.
Imagine, one could walk by and spit on it. Some may choose to defecate on it instead.
Would this be considered as a seditious act?
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