Saturday, February 25, 2012

TR Emeritus kowtows to Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew's second son

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In my last post I wrote about the series of defamation lawsuit threats against a Singapore blog TR Emeritus in quick succession by the Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew's 2 sons for having defamed them by calling their present high positions of Prime Minister and Presidents of various government owned companies and agencies as a result of nepotism and cronyism.

Although it should be obvious to anyone that this is in fact the case, the Lee family prohibits anyone from saying so, and they will sue and surely win, as the sad history of Singapore's lack of freedom of speech record shows. They win by the simple expediency of appointing corrupt judges who will conveniently change the rules to fix government critics.

Just before Lee Kuan Yew's sons shot out their letters, another minion of his, Lee's Singaporean Tamil Minister of Law K Shanmugam had also written to this blogger not to disclose his extra marital affairs with a Singapore Chinese woman Foo Mee Har or face a defamation lawsuit.

Richard Wan, the Singapore based editor of this blog had understandably complied with the demands of K Shanmugam and Lee's first son, the Prime Minister, but had earlier refused to do the same in Lee's other son's case, that of Lee Hsien Yang, claiming at first that he will "vigorously resist".

I am sure when he said that, it must have been the best news one could ever have had. At least I thought that finally, someone, in this case Richard Wan had picked up the courage to stand up to this family of bullies.

But alas, it was too good to be true. The state controlled Singapore newspaper the Straits Times of Feb 24, 2012 reports "TR Emeritus removes post about Lee Hsien Yang". It says "Sociopolitical website TR Emeritus did an about turn on Thursday night and removed a defamatory posting about corporate chieftain Lee Hsien Yang from it's portal. It also expressed regret that Mr. Lee was defamed by the comment which had been made by a netizen. This comes less than 24 hours after TRE said it would vigorously resist Mr. Lee's demands".

Although regrettable that TR Emeritus has kowtowed yet again, if you knew Singapore, his action is understandable. There is no way in the world for anyone sued by the Lee family or by his cronies in Singapore and expect to come out unscathed.

It is one country in the world, except erstwhile Stalinist Russia or present day Communist China, where TR Emeritus editor Richard Wan knows even before he steps into the courtroom that he has not only lost, that he will be ordered to pay millions in damages which he does not have, and promptly thereafter will be bankrupted and if his luck is really bad, even jailed!

Under these odds, it is not surprising that Wan has apologised. In fact if it would have pleased the Lee family, he would have even done the somersault, bent over backwards, rolled over and done the twist; whatever they wanted.

Wan's capitulation yet again did come as a bit of a damper at the end, but what else do you expect in Lee's Singapore, a place that holds the world record for the largest number of defamation actions filed by him and another record for never having lost a single one. In fact I think they are entitled to a third record of the largest number of bankrupts and financially ruined souls consequent on Lee Kuan Yew's defamation lawsuits.

A day later, in Lee's Straits Times of Feb 25, 2012 there is the
article "Sociopolitical website TR emeritus to continue operating". According to it, Richard Wan of TR Emeritus after all these apologies and kowtowing has said "Right now we have to do the responsible thing and carry on running the website. We have readers and we do not want to let them down".

To Richard Wan who wants to continue the website, I will ask the question, what for? There is no shades between the truth and a lie. Either it is true or it is not. If Richard Wan has to go on moderating the truth to please the Lee Kuan Yew family, then what he is going to say will simply no longer be the truth.

After all it is true that these appointments of Prime Minister and various top appointments for Lee's children are entirely because of nepotism. Anyone can see that. And if Wan not only has to say that this is not the case but to apologize as well, it will be turning logic upside down.

If Richard Wan is going to comply with all the demands of the Lee family, then it would no longer be a blog which fights for the freedoms of Singaporeans; it would in fact be another state controlled media.

Let me reiterate this. I am not faulting Richard Wan for giving in the Allmighty Lees. I fully understand the police state in which he lives and the limits to which he can go.

But having said that, TR Emeritus already exercises a great deal of self censorship so as not to offend the Lees, a very moderate blog as compared to those in the free world. If they have to go any further and exercise even more moderation, in truth it would no longer be recognizable as a voice for for those yearning freedom. It had better close.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
Disbarred from practicing law in Lee's Singapore, imprisoned and refused entry to the island for criticizing Singapore's judiciary in this blog (see blogpost May 29, 2008 Singapore. Judge Belinda Ang's Kangaroo Court)
Actively practicing law in California and in good standing at the California Bar.
Member in good standing as a lawyer in England and Wales (Barrister).
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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7 comments:

Anonymous said...

A History of Defamation Suits and Other Similar Actions in Singapore

http://utwt.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/history-of-defamation-suits-and-other.html

Anonymous said...

TR Emeritus' editor must resign. He wanted the limelight. He should have stayed anonymous. Now he is a target for the Lees and they will put the screws on him. He will reveal what cannot be revealed. The TR board must do the necessary now. Otherwise no one will have any confidence in TR.

Anonymous said...

Among the Singapore records, you failed to mention the case of Chia Thye Poh. According to Wikipedia, "Chia Thye Poh was the longest-serving political prisoner in the history of Singapore and perhaps the longest-serving prisoner of conscience of the 20th century, if not one of its longest-serving political prisoners."

Richard Wan and the local critics understand the grave consequence as PAP is still capable of the hideous act under the current "law." It never hesitated to take away civil liberties from critics including social and church workers in the past when there was even the slightest hint of threat to its rule.

Anonymous said...

Singapore's Lee Family and Nepotism

* Lee Kuan Yew became prime minister of Singapore in 1959 and ran the place until 1990, when he stepped down to become a senior minister and then was appointed minister mentor by his son,

Among other Lee family members who have held high positions in government are the
* elder Lee’s daughter, Lee Wee Ling, who is director of the National Neurological Institute.
* His other son, Lee Hsien Yang, was chief executive officer of Singapore Telecommunications from May 1995 until April 2007. He was appointed the chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore in 2009.

* Ho Ching, Hsien Loong’s wife, has run Temasek Holdings, the sovereign wealth fund controlled by the Singapore Ministry of Finance

"Although she has been criticized for some disastrous investments, including one in former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s Shin Corp that Fortune Magazine called a "spectacular misjudgment" as well as several others in flagging western investment banks, she has never been asked to step down."

http://www.asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4269&Itemid=189

I don't think LKY and sons and number 1 son's wife have the balls to sue the Asia Sentinel.

(Ho Ching and balls - now that is a picture that is easy to imagine.)

Anonymous said...

Challenging on the Lee family IN SINGAPORE is a formidable undertaking.

... the Lees have set a world record in filing defamation suits and a second one by never losing one, although in Singapore’s notoriously pliable courts when it comes to government or Lee family actions. [Pliable courts :)

The family has filed charges against virtually every major publication in Asia, including the (1) Economist, (2) Time Magazine, the (3) Financial Times, the (4) International Herald Tribune, the (5) Wall Street Journal (Asia) and its predecessor, the (6) Asian Wall Street Journal, the now-defunct (7) Far Eastern Economic Review and (8) AsiaWeek,

Keep's LKY lawyer, the towel-head, employed and happily eating chapatis and curry.

BTW, I like to see this towel-head tried and get past US immigration. He fits a certain type of profile, if you know what I mean :)

Anonymous said...

When the family ventured out to other courts, Lee Wei Ling (LKY's daughter), the head of the Neurological Institute, attempted to bring charges in London against Simon Shorvon, the former principal investigator of a medical research project in Singapore, on allegations of professional misconduct.

The London charges followed a long series of actions against Shorvon in Singapore.

Witnesses told the British High Court in England that the alleged offenses by Shorvon by the Singaporeans were so minor that they weren’t worth bothering with.

Ouch!

Anonymous said...

Google Singapore & Nepotism and see how many results you get.

Is the Lee clan going to sue Google now?

On the Internet, despots (and their progency) have no place to hide.

Please don't tell LKY to stop suing. Their actions will keep the flow of materials that will stored PERMANENTLY on the Internet.

Idiots!