Ladies and Gentlmen,
What else can we expect anyway in the Fascist state Singapore anyway, a state controlled TV with one sided news, with only state approved political opposition allowed to speak and real political opponents banned completely.
This is what happened on the program aired on state television on Feb 27, 2011 by Channel News Asia, a state controlled news agency, on the show Talking Points discussing the impending general elections.
Other than a Lee Kuan Yew approved woman from Channel News Agency who was asking the questions, there was Kenneth Jeyaretnam, the late Jeyaretnam's son from the Reform Party, Indranee and Palmer from Lee Kuan Yew's PAP, Goh Meng Seng from the NSP and Eric Tan from the Workers Party. The glaring party missing, which by now is not so glaring anymore, is Chee Soon Juan's Singapore Democratic Party.
In any other country which claims to have the rule of law and a respectable government, such a deliberate action to literally ban a legitimate political party from equal access to the state controlled media would have attracted an outcry.
It is clearly impermissible state discrimination against the party which has a right to contest the elections, and therfore should have equal access to the state controlled media.
I have been writing in these pages the clear injustice done to those who lawfully oppose Lee Kuan Yew's regime on a regular basis.
By now it is clear that the government no longer cares what others or it's own citizens think of them and by this failure to provide equal opportunity to the SDP, this government can no longer claim that these impending elections have even a modicum of fairness. It has lost all credibility whatsoever.
We know why Chee Soon Juan's party was excluded of course. He is going to speak his mind. He is going to ask the real questions and that is what Lee Kuan Yew and his family do not like.
Those present there, Kenneth Jeyaretnam and the others who claim to be opposition politicians are hardly that, otherwise they too would not have been invited to that government orchestrated choreographed show.
They were asked what was the issues in the coming elections. They played their part by skillfully skirting the real burning issues that faced Singapore and played very well to Lee Kuan Yew and his audience.
They said among other things, the question of large scale immigration, the question of the poor and how to help them etc etc. All very nice of course but they forgot the main questions that trouble any thinking citizen of Singapore, such as fundamental human rights.
It is like asking a starving man what he needs and he replies by saying clothes, a house, a car and such like, but never mentioning what he really needs, which is food.
Kenneth Jeyaretnam very carefully never raised any issue on the question of the denial of free speech and expression, the denial of the right of assembly, the lack of a free press, the brutality of punishments such as caning and hanging people for minor drug convictions.
Has it not occurred to Kenneth (I won't use his last name as I don't want to insult his illustrious father) that all these questions on immigration and other things are of no use at all when you don't have the right to speak freely, to assemble freely, to a free press? When you to have to live in fear, like Kenneth does?
But you guessed it correctly. He is not going to mention any of this because Lee Kuan Yew does not like it. And if Lee Luan Yew does not like it he does not stand a chance at all, he will become another JB Jeyaretnam which he does not want. So he and Goh Meng Seng and Eric Tan disgrace themselves by giving us a performance that comports with Lee's requirements.
Frankly I think Kenneth is going to win a seat. Even if he did not, Lee Kuan Yew would make sure of it by stuffing the ballot boxes. Lee knows he is not a threat. He would be an excellent window dressing for the PAP to show that there is one more opposition (sort of opposition) politician in Parliament other than the miserable 2, Low Thia Khiang and Chiam See Tong. With only 2 there, people are beginning to say, one party state, which is not very pleasant.
It is indeed a one party state with or without the presence of Kenneth Jeyaretnam in Parliament as an addition.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
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/
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2 comments:
Take to the street protest Dr Chee, what are you waiting for? You have nothing to lose but everything to gain. So glaring fly in the face of justice.
very well said, G.N, you spot on.
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