Singapore police go after opposition poitician Chee Soon Juan for talking to Francis Seow

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times online edition of Oct 10, 2011 has the story "Police investigating Singapore Democratic Party forum".

What is happening is this. Francis Seow was a former Solicitor General of Lee Kuan Yew's Peoples Action Party government for many years during which time he willingly did Lee's dirty work for him, arresting Lee's political opponents, and jailing them to please his then master.

Somewhere along the line, he fell from Lee's grace and was thrown out to the streets by his erstwhile master. Upset at Lee for his betryal, or perhaps also because he turned into a Thomas Beckett of sorts with pangs of conscience, we do not which is which, he announced that he was joining the then Workers Party headed by the late JB Jeyaretnam to contest elections against his former master.

This announcement sealed his fate. Singapore's Machiavelli, Lee Kuan Yew, as expected, came down on him like a ton of bricks, arrested him under the Internal Security Act, gave him a real beating and with a wink and a nod from the CIA, permitted him to leave Singapore for good, for the USA.

The other person in this drama is Tang Fong Har. She and other 22 civic minded citizens, mainly lawyers had got together to do some good for Singapore in the democracy arena. Since Lee considers democracy as anathema which should be excoriated at any cost, she and her fellow travellers were all arrested and detained for extended periods and repeatedly beaten up. During an interregnum at which she was released from the torture, she managed to make her way to Hong Kong and to freedom.

Both she and Francis Seow are treated as fugitives and in the case of Seow, there is also a warrant of arrest against him.

Except for Francis Seow and his rather unsavory past as the hatchet man that he was for Lee Kuan Yew for decades, perhaps we can forgive him as the repentant sinner or the reformed Beckett that he claims he is. I am not sure whether Lee Kuan Yew had mentioned the famous words, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest" that Henry II had said when ordering Seow's arrest but whether he did or not is really immaterial to what we are seeing in this stupidity being drawn out here.

As for Tang Fong Har, no one can have anything derogatory to say about her, other than praise for having the courage to speak up for the down trodden in Lee Kuan Yew's dictatorship. Seow has been living in exile in the US since 1988 and Tang has been similarly living in Hong Kong for same period.

A few days ago, Chee Soon Juan, the head of the Singapore Democratic Party had organized a teleconference session at a local Singapore hotel where Seow and Tang spoke to members of the public who attended, numbering perhaps 100 or so, answering their questions on Singaporean politics and giving their advice and views of how to get rid of Lee and his dictatorship.

Mind you, there was nothing incendiary about the whole thing. Neither of the guests advocated violence, terrorism or murder but only on lawful means for the purpose. Looking at this, it is impossible to see anything illegal about it, unless of course you happened to be Lee Kuan Yew and the subject country was Singapore.

The newspaper report states "The police are investigating whether organizers of last Sunday's forum featuring former Internal Security Act (ISA) detainees Francis Seow and Tang Fong Har breached the law".

It goes on to say "the organizers of the forum arranged for a fugitive from justice, Mr. Francis Seow and a foreign national Ms Tang Fong Har to participate in a discussion on Singapore's domestic politics".

It then says "the organizers had arranged for them to do so from outside Singapore's jurisdiction allowing them therefore to be involved in our domestic politics at a public assembly in Singapore without being physically present and accountable".

In other words, it appears incredible as it seems, Chee is being prosecuted for speaking to someone outside Singapore, who holds rather unflattering views about Lee Kuan Yew and his Singapore island! If anyone can tell me why Chee has broken the law for doing this, I would be forever grateful. Frankly I cannot see anything wrong that Chee or any of the others did for speaking to them nor for seeking their advice and opinion.

If any of these people are guilty of some crime or other, then I should have been guilty a thousand times over for writing all this stuff in Singapore Dissident. And all those people who have contributed comments, holding overwhelmingly negative opinion of Lee and his island, should all be guilty of crimes too.

And so should the International Bar Association who were in Singapore and the participants at their conference for condemning Lee and his government as nothing more than a petty tyrant and a gangster's den respectively. Should not all of them be guilty and be investigated for crimes against Singapore?

This is another example of an embattled Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship desperately trying to cling on to power in the wake of of the worst showing in decades at the polls where their share of the votes at the recent elections was the worst in history, a mere 60% with all indications showing the trend to continue unabated.

Lee as you can see is behaving as any other petty tyrant would do anywhere in the world when he sees his grip on his people slipping. What else to do than to tighten the grip and threaten his people to cow and submit or else the whip.

I don't think Chee or the people of Singapore are afraid of this sort of intimidation any longer. Frankly it has the opposite effect.

I am sure Lee Kuan Yew must have heard the theory in physics of an action resulting in a reaction. This sort of petty harassment and intimidation is the main cause of educated people leaving the island permanently for settlement abroad, because we no longer need to live in dictatorial societies where people are treated no better than dogs.

In a way this sort of stupidity serves the cause of freedom more than we think. For example, a large section of the already small legal profession continue to emigrate not wanting to practice law in a fascist regime such as this.

Families are not having children and the local Singapore population continues to shrink, being replaced by second rate immigrants from Communist China.

And most importantly, with cases such as this, Singapore continues to be the butt of jokes in every bar and saloon all over the world over a pint of beer.

As long as Lee continues with this sort of stupidity, his problems that he faces will increase, not decrease.

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/

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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.