Ladies and Gentlemen,
Everyone both within and without Singapore has heard of Amos Yee , a 16 year old unlikely teenager who did the unthinkable in the dictatorship started by Lee Kuan Yew in 1959.
Yee made a YouTube video just after the dictator died only recently in which he called him exactly what he is, a rat, to put it rather mildly.
Singapore is a repressive one party one man dictatorship island of Lee Kuan Yew, who first imposed the dictatorship in 1959 and which continues till today but now run by his son, in the Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Un style, first Lee Kuan Yew, now his son, in perpetuity.
What Yee, this 16 year old unlikely teenager did in the authoritarian intolerant tiny society was unthinkable.
He made a YouTube video just after the dictator died only recently in which he called him exactly what he is, a rat, to put it mildly, as the video is much worse.
In any other country making a video cursing and swearing at a Prime Minister is nothing unusual at all, it happens everyday, it is just a normal democratic process.
But not in Singapore run by Lee Kuan Yew's son.
He and his minions in power are terrified of any opposition and understandably so.
A robust credible respectable government is not afraid of any criticism because they know that their government is a lawful credible government with transparency and the rule of law.
Criticize if you want but the people have their own judgment and appreciation and the government can rebut what you say in a free society.
In Australia, you can make as many YouTube videos you want criticizing Tony Abbot and no one is going to be arrest you for it.
Why, because Australia is a proud respectable democracy, and they are not going to be toppled just because you made a video.
Not so in Singapore which has a major problem.
It is a banana republic.
A pariah state where the people have no freedom of speech, expression or assembly or the rule of law.
The judges are mere Kangaroos for the state.
There is blatant nepotism and corruption among the Ministers as they siphon off tax payer's money to the tune of millions of dollars which they call conveniently a salary.
The government is predominately ethnic Chinese, in a supposedly multi racial island, which shamelessly practices nepotism on a industrial scale where they give their Chinese family members and relatives cushy jobs and millions in corruption and kick backs while employing a handful of Tamils in high positions as show pieces to give the impression of impartiality.
Since every Singaporean knows the corruption and the slavish lives they live under a dictatorship, in any argument the citizen, if allowed to speak will win hands down because he is right in calling this government a corrupt dictatorship without any rule of law.
It is precisely because they have no leg to stand on if challenged in open debate by any citizen, that they feel it necessary to use extra-legal means to muzzle any critic at any cost, because the moment he is allowed to speak, there goes the credibility or the lack of it among these dictators.
So as young Amos has to silenced at any cost, the moment he put out the video, he was immediately arrested and charged firstly with insulting Christians, because he criticized Jesus Christ, insulting the dead Lee Kuan Yew by drawing a cartoon of him having sex with the deceased former English Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and insulting the deceased Lee Kuan Yew himself by calling him a "horrible person". You can see the video here in the report in the New Yorker.
http://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-arrest-of-a-teen-aged-youtube-star
Any lawyer can tell you that this Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship is clearly misusing the law, as they do whenever they want, by using the criminal law against Yee for what he did.
The principle of modern jurisprudence in criminal law allows the state to interfere in a citizen's private actions only when the rights of others are affected.
Otherwise, a citizen has a right to be free from arrest and molestation by the state. If not, you end up a police state, which Singapore presently is.
By putting up this video, Yee has not harmed anyone else. No Christian has been harmed, his cartoon of Lee Kuan Yew having sex with Margaret Thatcher has not harmed anyone else, least of all Margaret Thatcher who has long since died, and as there is no law against insulting a dead person, since Lee Kuan Yew is already dead, he cannot possibly suffer any harm as a result.
Of course you know why they have to arrest Yee.
It is because what he said is entirely true. And even if it is not true, he has a right to say it if he wants and it is none of Lee Kuan Yew's son's business to be arresting him
And if more and more people are allowed to repeat this truth, Lee's son who is now running the dictatorship is going to find it impossible to keep his increasingly discerning citizens in line.
So he does the only thing he knows, arrest anyone who criticizes, in the hope that other like minded persons who are thinking of doing the same are dissuaded and silenced.
But in this game of chess of Yee versus the Lee dictatorship, Yee is the winner hands down.
Regardless of what Singapore law says of his actions, what really matters is the law of natural justice.
What matters is common sense.
What matters is where does the moral high ground lie? It clearly lies with Amos Yee.
In the court of public opinion, the clear winner is Amos Yee who has managed to stand up like the proverbial David against this repressive corrupt regime of the Lees, the Singaporean Goliath.
And having roundly defeated this corrupt regime just by having the courage to stand up to them in the first place, Yee has now upped the ante.
In court recently as a condition of granting bail, the judge in the court of Lee's Alice in Wonderland, had underestimated the resolve of this young opponent.
The judge went too far and had demanded that Yee, who is now in jail pending his trial, not post anymore blogs as a condition for his release.
Such a demand of a citizen is clearly illegal under any jurisdiction except perhaps in North Korea.
This really crossed the line.
No court in the world can simply demand that a citizen be prohibited to write and publish anything at all.
He clearly misjudged his young 16 year old opponent by thinking that like all meek and submissive Singaporeans who submit every single time, he would too.
But then there is always the exception.
This is where Yee has called out checkmate to this dictatorship.
If Yee insists that he will not budge on this demand, what is the judge going to do?
If he keeps Yee in jail until the trial, unless the trial is tomorrow, Yee is going to be imprisoned without having been found guilty by any court of law, something totally unacceptable in the civilized world.
Furthermore not to prolong the unjust detention of Yee, any trial that occurs so suddenly is itself vitiated in law because Yee was not given sufficient time to prepare his case.
I hope that Yee will continue to stand his ground despite the hardship and say no to any demand that he be muzzled from writing and publishing what he wants.
The Lee regime in Singapore has already been defeated by Yee merely standing up to this dictatorship.
The shame on the regime will be all the more greater when Yee stands his ground and refuses to submit to this nonsensical demand. His victory will be all the more sweeter.
I post here the state controlled Straits Times report on the standoff between them regarding the demand that Yee make no other public reports or blogs. http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/courts-crime/story/amos-yee-wants-bail-conditions-reviewed-he-claims-they-amount-gag
If anyone is wondering why I am able to write this and not be arrested, it is because I live in the United States. Lee's Kangaroo courts do not work here.
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California USA
Tel: 510 491 8525
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/singapore.dissident
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
To top it off, the PAP has forced The Real Singapore website to be shut down.
These poor Singaporeans are really brain washed. Luckily I left long ago without doing my NS and am not subject to PAP's stupid laws any longer.
Jason
The best joke of it is that our PAP Govt can't even handle the truth blurted out by a 16-year old teenage Singaporean until they need to remand him in order to stop him from speaking out ?
They might as well simply knock him down from behind to make it appear like a freak accident like what some victims has revealed to us when threatened by the secret police since a dead person won't be able to blog any more?
When has our PAP Govt become such a pariah Government?
The house of cards that the PAP government has built for itself, based on the myths of economic prosperity (not for all though), materialism, and the importance of education and housing, will not last for long. Amos Yee basically showed that when you deprive people of the desire for freedom, even if it fires off in various directions like a loose cannon at times, then you can only expect that despite whatever superficial affluence people might seem to enjoy, people will still revolt in words if not action. Now they want to silence a boy? They can jail him and throw him into prison for as long as they deem fit, but it only starts a fire that will spread.
We ought to appreciate that Singapore has managed to prosper from a fishing village to a first-class city thus far. Religious and racial harmony is essential to sustain our progress. Let your wisdom guide you in your judgement, let not the comments posed by the ignorant causes conflict and friction among us. We have enjoyed peace and prosperity of the fruits planted down by our pioneers, if only we remain to be united as one. Freedom of speech might result in some conflicts if not put under control.
To Kevin:
Given their utter failure in controlling cost of living for the average citizen since the last general election, resentment from the electorate is bursting through the seams and are thoroughly disillusioned their mandate for "economic prosperity in exchange for civil liberties". The proverbial camel's back has already been broken through the many straws of PAP's mismanagement, and while sensational Amos Yee is only mere one of them.
To Anonymous who said
"We ought to appreciate that Singapore has managed to prosper from a fishing village to a first-class"
I take issue with the claim that Singapore was ever a fishing village. Not true. It was a thriving sea port as British Singapore.
Second freedom of speech does not result in conflicts. Conflicts are a healthy part of democracies. Conflicts are not crimes.
Now amos is claiming to have suicidal thoughts while in remand. He has been in remand from.2nd june waiting for the report wrt his suitability for RTC.
The claim that the judge cannot decide on the suitability of sentence for Amos Yee and needs to put him in remand for three weeks is just a means of breaking him.
Post a Comment