Ladies and Gentlemen,
I don't think there is another case anywhere in the world than this, where a country's Law Society claims a lawyer had misbehaved, commences proceedings against him with a loud fanfare and extensive publicity in their state controlled press, designed to humiliate and discredit him, but when that lawyer stands up to them, they instead cringe and is completely silenced. This is exactly what is happening in this case of Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair.
I have the following important questions for the Singapore Law Society in this case:
1. The main charge against me in these proceedings is for criticizing Singapore Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in this blog dated May 29, 2008, for which I was tried and convicted in September 2008. If they felt that my writing the blog was unethical, why did they not commence disciplinary proceedings against me then?
Why did something that was not offensive then suddenly become actionable conduct several months later? Are they so inefficient or inept not to see unethical conduct for several months after it happens?
In fact after I returned to California in November of that year, they still did nothing, choosing to commence proceedings only after I withdrew the apology in this blog, given in the Singapore court and re-posting the 2 blog posts which I had deleted under orders of the court.
Was the reason for commencing proceedings some five months later, because I decided to break my undertaking to the Singapore court or was it a genuine claim of unethical conduct? Or was it because their ego was so hurt that it was a knee jerk reaction of lashing out at someone willing to snub his nose at them, something they have never experienced in their one party dictatorship, where fear alone rules the day?
2. The Singapore Law Society is facing the same problem above mentioned in every one of the charges against me. The dilemma they face is how to proceed when your cause has been shown to have no merit at all.
3. And why is the Singapore Disciplinary Committee not giving their verdict even though their Law Society have filed their final submissions in November of this year? What is causing this additional delay? As Singapore propaganda claims to have efficiency in legal administration, meaning speed, with cases decided almost at breakneck speed, why then in this case alone is justice going at snails pace?
4. There can only be the following reasons for their hesitation. For one, they have found a very difficult victim in Gopalan Nair. He has put every single fact about this abuse of the law in the Internet. For once, the cat is out of the bag, and they have now to justify to the world their actions, which they find difficult under any circumstance.
So instead of proceeding now, they hope to delay this even longer in the hope that this episode which appears to have taken an unexpected turn, occasioned by an unwilling victim, would dull and fade in the minds of Singaporeans and the world, and perhaps some long time later, when people no longer remember, they will then proceed and have me disbarred.
But the problem the Singapore government faces is the fact that I am not going to allow them to get away so easily. I am going to constantly remind the public of the abuse of the law in this case, and it is going to remain a thorn on the side of this one party dictatorship and their state controlled judiciary and their Law Society for as long as it takes.
Since the Singapore Law Society is an extension of the one party state government under whose orders they commence politically motivated disciplinary proceedings such as this to silence dissent, I would ask the reader to write to the following government officers and the Law Society President for a well deserved explanation:
Singaporean Attorney General Sundaresh Menon, Tel: (65) 63325950, Email: shirleyne_chan@agc.gov.sg
Singapore Minister of Law, K Shanmugam, Tel: (65) 63328810, Email: k_shanmugam@mlaw.gov.sg
Singaporean Minister for Home Affairs, Wong Kan Seng, Tel: (65)64786000 Email: wong_kan_seng@mha.gov.sg
Singapore Law Society President, Wong Meng Meng, Wong PartnershipLLP, 1 George Street, #20-01, Singapore 049145, Tel: (65)64168000, Email: mengmeng.wong@wongpartnership.com
These people who take advantage of a state controlled legal system to destroy Lee Kuan Yew's political opponents hate anyone challenging their actions.
I urge those within and outside of Singapore to stand up to these bullies. Please demand answers and hold them accountable.
The more they delay the greater their loss of credibility. As it is, despite several months since they have commenced this, they have become as quiet as a mouse. Thank you and a Happy New Year.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair, two plus two is fifty eight!
Edited 12/25/2010
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Singapore Law Society had set out its arguments to the Disciplinary Committee on why I should be disbarred. The following are my extracts of their written Closing Submissions dated Oct 19, 2010 with my responses. The Singaporean Disciplinary Committee have not yet come to a decision even though it has been more than 2 years since the incident involving Singapore Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in 2008.
The lawyer representing the Singapore Law Society, who makes the following arguments is Peter Cuthbert Low, a local Singapore Chinese lawyer with an English sounding name of Colin Ng and Partners, 36 Carpenter Street, Singapore 6323 8383, Email: peterlow@cnplaw.com. If you outraged, disturbed or amused, or all of them, give him a piece of your mind.
So as not to forget what I am accused of, I set out the following:
Charge 1. Between the 26th of May 2008 and the 28th of May 2008, I was in a courtroom in the High Court Singapore, having just arrived from San Francisco, to observe the defamation case for damages between Lee Kuan Yew and Dr. Chee Soon Juan, his victim.
The judge appointed to do the dirty work for Lee Kuan Yew, was a woman Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who conducted, what was to be for 3 days, a mockery of justice, a charade and a Stalinist show trial.
Both Lee Kuan Yew's lawyer Davinder Singh in collaboration with the Judge appeared as if they there to give anything the former wanted, to shut up Dr. Chee completely. Every single thing he said was ruled out, every argument declared irrelevant or improper, repeatedly threatened with contempt charges, and in the end as was expected she not only awarded Lee Kuan Yew whatever he wanted, she also sent Dr. Chee and his sister to jail for contempt for their temerity to have asked the Singapore Superman Lee Kuan Yew even the handful of questions they did.
After having listened to that shameful travesty of justice, you might have thought that the trial of the Rabbit who Stole the Tart in Alice in Wonderland was a far fairer trial than this. I was nauseated with the spectacle of this woman judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean bending so low and so shamelessly for Lee Kuan Yew.
Naturally I was angry, which red blooded human being wouldn't. So on May 29, 2008 in this blog, I wrote the post titled "Singapore. Judge Belinda Ang's Kangaroo Court", in which I had mentioned a number of clear egregious instances of bias by this Judge and added the words "The judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders." These words were a correct use of the English language, as "prostituting oneself" in all dictionaries means the abuse of authority by an officer for dishonest or base means as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean so shamelessly did. Please read this blog post of May 29, 2008.
The blog's contents were not only proper in this egregious outrage of a judge publicly misusing the law, it was also necessary to be said. I stand by what I said and will gladly say it again. And again.
In a trial that lasted 11 days, for writing this blog I was charged and convicted of insulting a public servant and sent to prison for 3 months.
Nowhere in the world would I be disbarred for criticizing a disgraceful judge such as this in a blog, except I suppose in Singapore.
Charges 2 and 3. The next 2 charges refers to an incident near Little India, a district in Singapore frequented by Indians on July 4th 2008, American Independence Day, when I was accosted by about 6 men, not in uniform who demanded to know who I was and demanded to see my identity card while accusing me of "knocking" on their police car which was about 30 feet away. Not knowing who they were I naturally refused when I was abruptly assaulted, violently tackled, pinned to the ground, causing me injuries to the face and damage to my glasses. Subsequently they concocted a story that I had hurled abuses at them and behaved in a rowdy (disorderly) manner. In a trial that lasted as long as 18 days, I was eventually found guilty and sentenced to a fine of $3,000.00. I paid the fine.
The Singapore Law Society’s Lawyer’s charge prominently features the following obscenities which they claim I said "F***ck off. You policemen don't waste my time F***king time, "B***tard" etc etc.” What this lawyer for the Law Society is trying to do is to highlight these words and argue that a lawyer who loses his temper and yells vulgarities as policemen should be disbarred. Although I never said any of this, which is a product of their desperate imagination to make me look bad, I would like to tell him that losing one's temper with policemen and yelling at them with vulgarities is not a ground for disbarring a lawyer in any part of the world, except perhaps Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
I never did any of what they have said. The only reason I can imagine for my arrest and conviction, was because they knew who I was and therefore an excellent opportunity for them to claim that I was a rowdy character, which would make their Belinda Ang Saw Ean case due to be heard soon, much easier for them. Even though their state controlled newspapers reported that 25 members of the public had watched my arrest, the only witnesses Sargent Vickneswaran Sockalingam, the Police Investigating Officer produced at trial were the 5 police officers who one after the other repeated exactly what was required to be said in a well rehearsed manner. For all you want they could have all said that I sang the latest Michael Jackson tunes and danced the Tango and the judge would still have accepted it.
Charge 4. After I was convicted in the Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean case and staying in prison, about November 12, 2008, just one week before my release, the police visited me and told me that I am now facing more charges, this time for contempt of court for remarks I made during my trial for yelling at policemen, because, according to them, I had made certain remarks that had offended the integrity of the courts, statements such as "these are politically motivated charges", and comments of similar nature! Naturally I was surprised why they were coming up with this now, since earlier the judge himself took no action when I was in court. If he was unhappy, surely the right thing for him to do was to charge me in his presence! Since he never took any action himself then, which we can assume to mean that he was not unhappy, how is it they come up with it weeks or months later! That is why I keep repeating that this is a classic Kangaroo court.
I did believe that the charges before the court in the yelling case was politically motivated and that is why I said it. I would say it again if necessary, because that was the truth. At no time did I personally insult the judge which is what is necessary for a contempt charge.
Nevertheless I was brought to court the next day from prison in chains and asked to answer to these new contempt charges. Not wanting to stay a day longer in jail, I apologized and promised not to repeat any such criticism again and offered to delete 2 blog posts about that court hearing in this blog. In other words I did anything the judge wanted so as not to prolong my detention and in return no more jail time was imposed. I was released the next week after having spent 2 months in prison for the Belinda Ang Saw Ean case, and returned to California.
However since I had no intention to apologize nor delete those blog posts, which I did so that my detention will not be extended, immediately after I returned to California on Nov 2008, I retracted my apology in this blog, and re-posted the 2 blog posts which were earlier removed.
In this charge, I am accused of reneging on the apology and re-posting the 2 blog posts after my return to California.
Charge 5 again refers to a blog post I wrote after I returned to California concerning Singapore Judge Judith Prakash who had sentenced 3 men to jail sentences just because they wore T shirts with pictures of a Kangaroo dressed in judicial robes.
It is titled "Judith Prakash. Another Kangaroo Judge" of Nov 30, 2008. The men were found in the vicinity of the Belinda Ang Saw Ean's court. They did nothing objectionable, did not chant any slogans or do anything else illegal. Wearing T shirts with pictures of Kangaroos is not a contempt of court. In this blog post, in addition to stating the facts I wrote the words:
" Judge Judith Prakash of the Supreme Court Singapore had prostituted herself in her capacity as a judge hearing the Kangaroo T shirt case on November 24, 2008 by being nothing more than an employee of Lee Kuan Yew and his son, whom he appointed Prime Minister. By her actions in sending these young men to prison and making them pay crippling court costs of $5,000.00 each, she has shamefully disgraced herself, her office of a judge, disgraced the Singapore Constitution and disgraced Singapore." The charge refers to this.
Failure to provide discovery: Singapore's Law Society Lawyer has sent me a bundle among other papers titled Complainants Bundle of Authorities Volume 3, but he has not sent Volume 1 or 2 if these were supposed to be sent. The bundle has some cases but he conveniently leaves out cases which are clearly inapplicable, but refers to passages from them anyway, a highly disgraceful practice .
What this lawyer is trying to argue: Other than a lot of verbiage about the meaning of statutes and such like which is nothing more than a waste of print paper, he says, because of an English case, In re a Solicitor (1960)2 QB 212, he argues that like that English lawyer I should be disbarred. He conveniently fails to provide the full law report, but the little he provides about it goes like this. The lawyer was convicted in 1956 of 2 cases of indecent assault under Sec 34(15) of the Metropolitan Police Act and given the maximum sentence possible. The Singapore Law Society conveniently fails to state what exactly these 2 serious indecent assaults in 1956 involved. Did they involve molesting young children or molesting multiple women in broad daylight? What indecent assaults did he do? For this the lawyer was suspended from practice for 2 years. Subsequently in 1959, he was charged with insulting behavior where a breach of the peace occurred, for which he was disbarred, but again Singaporean Law Society lawyer provides no more details.
Either he takes us all for a bunch of fools or he himself is one. This English case has as much relevance to may case as a lion is similar to a mouse or a sparrow to an eagle, or bloody murder to pickpockets.
For one I have not committed 2 serious cases of indecent assault on anyone and I unlike the English lawyer is a Singapore dissident and democracy activist working hard to topple the Lee Kuan Yew regime. I am working in the public interest for a just cause unlike that English lawyer. Instead of facing disciplinary proceedings, I should be honored and appreciated for my work, which I happy to state ordinary Singaporeans and the rest of the world do.
Singaporean Law Society then refers to another case to justify my disbarment which he again conveniently fails to provide either the full law report or the full facts. In Law Society of Singapore vs Wong Sin Yee, he was charged and convicted of assaulting another as well as saying the words "why you call your father, call Lee Kuan Yew or f*****ing police". Except to say that this man assaulted someone, he did not say how many bones he broke, whether the man lost consciousness, why did he beat the man, was it premeditated, was it related to his client etc. Again this case has no comparison to mine. I have not assaulted anyone. And neither have I yelled at anyone. And even if I yelled at anyone, it cannot possibly be a ground for disbarring anyone.
Again, the Singaporean Law Society's lawyer argues that in Law Society Singapore v Tham Yu Xian Rick (1999) 3 SLR (R) 68, the fact that the offense was unrelated to his professional work did not matter. But here again, except to say this, he conveniently fails either to provide the full law report on this case or to give us the facts. For all we know, Tham Yu Xian may have raped several women and even though raping several women was not part of his law practice, surely he can be disbarred. But I have not raped several women, if in fact Tham Yu Xian Rick actually did it. Here again we see the Singapore Law Society's dishonesty in selectively concealing the facts by relying on mere sentences taken out of context to further their case.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then cites the case of Re Knight Glen Jeyasingham (1994) 3 SLR(R)366, where Jeyasingham was convicted under Section 6(c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act of using a false vehicle invoice to deceive his principle for which he was disbarred. Although the Law Society lawyer does not give any further information, it is common knowledge that Jeyasingham was a senior member of the Attorney Generals office who suddenly fell out of grace with Lee Kuan Yew government after which through a surprising series of events daily reported in the state controlled press, he was charged with criminal offices involving criminal breach of trust, which involved misusing his authority and office of Public Prosecutor, convicted of crimes and disbarred. Again Jeyasingham’s case of using a false vehicle invoice to deceive his principle has absolutely nothing to do with my case, no similarity whatsoever.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then refers to the case of Re Hilborne (1983 to 1984)SLR(R)322, where "Hilborne marched unannounced and without prior appointment into the private chamber of a Judge alone, was discourteous rude and insolent to the late judge. He threatened to report the judge to high authority and addressed the judge in an angry manner". Hilborne was asked to show cause but since he was an Englishman returned to England and had nothing more to do with Singapore or their legal system. I on the other hand have not been discourteous to any judge in any courtroom or chambers. I did write a blog post in this blog about Belinda Ang Saw Ean. This case of Hilborne has absolutely no relevance to mine, again an instance of comparing of apples with oranges.
The Singaporean Law Society lawyer refers to another politically motivated case against me which was decided in 1993, at which time I was already in California. The case is Re Gopalan Nair (1993)1SLR375. The background to this case is as follows. In the late 1980s, JB Jeyaretnam was a staunch critic of Lee Kuan Yew. This is what happened. Lee Kuan Yew sued Jeyaretnam for several hundred thousands of dollars for defamation and won, as he always does.
Unable to pay Lee Kuan Yew, Jeyaretnam's Workers Party was made bankrupt. Jeyaretnam was trying to raise funds to pay this, because otherwise he too would be bankrupt. He asked the public for donations and asked me to be his trustee for the funds which I gladly agreed.
Among the many checks from donors, were 2 checks for small amounts about $100 or so payable to the Workers Party. Jeyaretnam had asked them to change the name of the payee from Workers Party to Jeyaretnam because, if the money went to Workers Party which was under bankruptcy, Jeyaretnam would not receive the money since it would go the Government Trustee. It appears the 2 gladly changed the payee's name to Jeyaretnam. As a result of this, even though the law was very clear that the money does not belong to Workers Party until they receive it, and the drawer of the check is free to change the name of the payee anytime, the Singapore court found Jeyaretnam guilty of criminal breach of trust and convicted him. The Government (or Lee Kuan Yew’s argument), believe it or not, was that once the drawer of the check writes a payee’s name, any attempt to change it to someone else is a breach of trust against the original payee!
Secondly, arising from these 2 checks, Jeyaretnam did not disclose these funds in his financial declaration of the Workers Party since this money did not belong to the party, but the court found that the money was indeed that of the party and convicted him of making a false declaration.
As a result Jeyaretnam was convicted of these false criminal offenses and disbarred. Jeyaretnam appealed his disbarment to the Privy Council in London. The parties to the case were JB Jeyaretnam and the Singaporean Law Society.
At the commencement of the London hearing the Judges had specifically asked the lawyer for the Singaporean Law Society in the 1980s, whether the Singapore Attorney General was aware of the hearing and whether he wanted to be heard, since the court was going to look into the legality of Jeyaretnam's alleged crimes. The answer the judges got from the Law Society lawyer was that the Singapore Attorney General, Tan Boon Teik was aware of the hearing and had not filed any request to appear in the proceedings. Satisfied with that the court went on the hear the case.
At the conclusion of the hearing their Lordships in London correctly stated the law that Jeyaretnam was not guilty of any crimes and made the following scathing attack on Singapore's corrupt legal system,
"Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments, the appellant and his co-accused Wong, have suffered a grievous injustice. They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they are not guilty. The appellant, in addition, has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a year from practicing his profession. Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President of the Republic of Singapore."
This was a slap in the face for Lee Kuan Yew and a public humiliation of monumental proportions to his legal system which for the first time told the world that Lee Kuan Yew uses the law with the collaboration and connivance of his judges, prosecutors and the police to abuse the law for his political ends.
When Jeyaretnam returned from London with the verdict, he was certainly in high spirits. He could resume his practice and the English court vindicated his good name and showed Lee Kuan Yew and his government as nothing more than a tin pot dictatorship.
As the law then stood, although the London court could reinstate Jeyaretnam to the Singapore Bar, they could not reverse the criminal convictions against him since Singapore law only allowed criminal cases to appeal up to the Singapore High Court and no more. Therefore the only avenue available to Jeyartenam to clear his name was a request for a pardon from the President of Singapore.
Jeyaretnam did proceed to apply for a pardon which the President of Singapore denied through his Attorney General, Tan Boon Teik. Tan's letter as to why he refused the pardon was published in Singapore's state controlled press. His reasons were that 1)"because JB Jeyaretnam did not show remorse repentance and contrition for the crimes he committed, the President will not pardon him" and 2) because he (Tan Boon Teik) was not given an opportunity to appear at the London hearing the verdict of the court is flawed. But surely there is something wrong here. If in fact the London's Privy Council had said he is not guilty of any crimes, how does one show "remorse, repentance and contrition" for a crime one did not commit! If in fact anyone should show "remorse repentance and contrition" it should surely be Lee Kuan Yew himself for the crimes he committed by disgracefully misusing the law to destroy his political opponents.
This is where I come in. Naturally I was very angry reading Tan Boon Teik's response. So I wrote to Tan asking him why he says Jeyaretnam committed crimes when the Privy Council categorically stated that he was innocent and why did he say that he was not given an opportunity to appear in the London court when the Judges clearly asked about this and were told he did not want to appear. Tan's first response to me was that he was not involved and that if I needed answers I should ask Jeyaretnam. Not satisfied with his answer which was clearly unresponsive, I sent him another very polite letter telling him that his statements were contrary to the facts and that he should explain himself, otherwise I will make public the correspondence between him and me within 14 days. Not receiving any further response from him, I faxed my letters to him and his to me to all lawyers in Singapore.
The Singapore Law Society through the insistence of Tan brought charges, which were that I threatened the Attorney General demanding responses and threatening to publish them, that I threatened the Attorney General to give me satisfactory replies within a stipulated time and that I falsely accused the Attorney General of not wanting to be heard at Jeyaretnam's trial in London. After a prolonged Disciplinary hearing which lasted several months in Singapore, in which Martin Thomas QC, Jeyaretnam's London lawyer and Rose QC, the Singapore Law Society's London Counsel also gave evidence, I was found guilty. Before the matter came to the High Court of Singapore for sentencing, soon after I was found guilty, I left Singapore permanently in disgust, not wanting to practice in a Kangaroo court system like this. In 1993 when I was already in California, the matter came before three judges in the High Court, 2 of them being Yong Pong Howe and GP Selvam who suspended me from practice for 2 years.
There could not have been a greater travesty of justice than this. There is obviously nothing wrong for a lawyer to write a letter to an Attorney General demanding an explanation and telling him that if an explanation is not received within a stipulated time, those letters would be publicly distributed. I did not threaten to harm him or do anything to him. Yet surely this "threat", which they call a “threat” which was to publish correspondence for the public to know and telling him that what he said about not having a chance to appear in the London court was untrue cannot possibly be unethical. Yet the Singapore Law Society is trying to use my own case for being suspended for 2 years from practicing law just because I demanded answers from the Attorney General to have me disbarred!
From that moment, I made up my mind that I am going to fight this dictatorship for as along as I can which is why these proceedings are going on.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then refers to the case of Ravi Madasamy (2007)2SLR(R) 300, where Madasamy admitted to a number of occasions where he had shown disrespect to a judge/judges before whom he appeared for his clients. He was suspended from practice for this for one year. Madasamy's case is nowhere similar to mine, again a case of comparing apples to oranges. I was never discourteous to any judge before whom I appeared. I wrote a blog post criticizing Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean's egregious absence of integrity as a judge and I stated with all decorum and civility in my "yelling at policemen case" that the case brought against me was politically motivated. Madasamy on the other hand decides to be disrespectful to the judge before whom he appears in court.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer has several more pages and passages where he states that I had shown no remorse, that I had no respect for the Singapore courts and that I had breached my undertaking to the court in Singapore when I withdrew my apology which I gave to the judge for the contempt charges. Yes I have no respect whatsoever for this puny tin pot tyrant's courts in Singapore which has now undoubtedly become the laughing stock of the world. You now have only 3,000 lawyers or less left in a country of 5 million and very soon with even more leaving; you will have to represent both sides of the argument.
Lee Kuan Yew, I can tell you is a fool. Abusing the law to stay in power is simply counter productive. It simply will not work.
This Internet is not good for the one party dictatorship which this Singapore lawyer is trying to protect. This blog post is going to be read throughout the world, mainly by Singaporeans Americans Australians and the rest of the world. It is not going to look good for the one party state with an 88 year despot who will die anytime soon.
I am waiting for the Disciplinary committee to make its finding which they have not yet done although it has been more than 2 years since the accusation, the delay very probably is because they don't know what to do now. With the Internet and everything about this case in the open, they are hard pressed to come up with a justification for disbarment, which is what they want to do. As the saying goes, I have got them by the neck.
And furthermore once the Committee decides, the matter would have to go the court which will decide the punishment.
I am not going to stop this work. I am thankful to God for this opportunity to fight the one party state which retains power by abusing the law.
As my case continues to unfold in public, I expect even more Singapore lawyers to either leave the profession or leave the country entirely in disgust as they have been doing to the present pathetic state of less than 3,000 lawyers. This is a pressure the one party state cannot possibly withstand.
This issue will continue to be alive and will be read in places as far away as Israel and Byelorussia. And what is written in this blog will exist for the world to read in perpetuity, which surely has to be very bad news for Lee Kuan Yew’s one party state and it’s state controlled judiciary.
And finally one piece of advice to this Singapore establishment. Pick your victims carefully, and try to avoid those such as myself who have an education and are passionate about such things as freedom. They may not roll over and act dead as you expect. Some of them may fight back, and in this day of the Internet, it may be you, not him that gets hurt.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Singapore Law Society had set out its arguments to the Disciplinary Committee on why I should be disbarred. The following are my extracts of their written Closing Submissions dated Oct 19, 2010 with my responses. The Singaporean Disciplinary Committee have not yet come to a decision even though it has been more than 2 years since the incident involving Singapore Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in 2008.
The lawyer representing the Singapore Law Society, who makes the following arguments is Peter Cuthbert Low, a local Singapore Chinese lawyer with an English sounding name of Colin Ng and Partners, 36 Carpenter Street, Singapore 6323 8383, Email: peterlow@cnplaw.com. If you outraged, disturbed or amused, or all of them, give him a piece of your mind.
So as not to forget what I am accused of, I set out the following:
Charge 1. Between the 26th of May 2008 and the 28th of May 2008, I was in a courtroom in the High Court Singapore, having just arrived from San Francisco, to observe the defamation case for damages between Lee Kuan Yew and Dr. Chee Soon Juan, his victim.
The judge appointed to do the dirty work for Lee Kuan Yew, was a woman Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who conducted, what was to be for 3 days, a mockery of justice, a charade and a Stalinist show trial.
Both Lee Kuan Yew's lawyer Davinder Singh in collaboration with the Judge appeared as if they there to give anything the former wanted, to shut up Dr. Chee completely. Every single thing he said was ruled out, every argument declared irrelevant or improper, repeatedly threatened with contempt charges, and in the end as was expected she not only awarded Lee Kuan Yew whatever he wanted, she also sent Dr. Chee and his sister to jail for contempt for their temerity to have asked the Singapore Superman Lee Kuan Yew even the handful of questions they did.
After having listened to that shameful travesty of justice, you might have thought that the trial of the Rabbit who Stole the Tart in Alice in Wonderland was a far fairer trial than this. I was nauseated with the spectacle of this woman judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean bending so low and so shamelessly for Lee Kuan Yew.
Naturally I was angry, which red blooded human being wouldn't. So on May 29, 2008 in this blog, I wrote the post titled "Singapore. Judge Belinda Ang's Kangaroo Court", in which I had mentioned a number of clear egregious instances of bias by this Judge and added the words "The judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders." These words were a correct use of the English language, as "prostituting oneself" in all dictionaries means the abuse of authority by an officer for dishonest or base means as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean so shamelessly did. Please read this blog post of May 29, 2008.
The blog's contents were not only proper in this egregious outrage of a judge publicly misusing the law, it was also necessary to be said. I stand by what I said and will gladly say it again. And again.
In a trial that lasted 11 days, for writing this blog I was charged and convicted of insulting a public servant and sent to prison for 3 months.
Nowhere in the world would I be disbarred for criticizing a disgraceful judge such as this in a blog, except I suppose in Singapore.
Charges 2 and 3. The next 2 charges refers to an incident near Little India, a district in Singapore frequented by Indians on July 4th 2008, American Independence Day, when I was accosted by about 6 men, not in uniform who demanded to know who I was and demanded to see my identity card while accusing me of "knocking" on their police car which was about 30 feet away. Not knowing who they were I naturally refused when I was abruptly assaulted, violently tackled, pinned to the ground, causing me injuries to the face and damage to my glasses. Subsequently they concocted a story that I had hurled abuses at them and behaved in a rowdy (disorderly) manner. In a trial that lasted as long as 18 days, I was eventually found guilty and sentenced to a fine of $3,000.00. I paid the fine.
The Singapore Law Society’s Lawyer’s charge prominently features the following obscenities which they claim I said "F***ck off. You policemen don't waste my time F***king time, "B***tard" etc etc.” What this lawyer for the Law Society is trying to do is to highlight these words and argue that a lawyer who loses his temper and yells vulgarities as policemen should be disbarred. Although I never said any of this, which is a product of their desperate imagination to make me look bad, I would like to tell him that losing one's temper with policemen and yelling at them with vulgarities is not a ground for disbarring a lawyer in any part of the world, except perhaps Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
I never did any of what they have said. The only reason I can imagine for my arrest and conviction, was because they knew who I was and therefore an excellent opportunity for them to claim that I was a rowdy character, which would make their Belinda Ang Saw Ean case due to be heard soon, much easier for them. Even though their state controlled newspapers reported that 25 members of the public had watched my arrest, the only witnesses Sargent Vickneswaran Sockalingam, the Police Investigating Officer produced at trial were the 5 police officers who one after the other repeated exactly what was required to be said in a well rehearsed manner. For all you want they could have all said that I sang the latest Michael Jackson tunes and danced the Tango and the judge would still have accepted it.
Charge 4. After I was convicted in the Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean case and staying in prison, about November 12, 2008, just one week before my release, the police visited me and told me that I am now facing more charges, this time for contempt of court for remarks I made during my trial for yelling at policemen, because, according to them, I had made certain remarks that had offended the integrity of the courts, statements such as "these are politically motivated charges", and comments of similar nature! Naturally I was surprised why they were coming up with this now, since earlier the judge himself took no action when I was in court. If he was unhappy, surely the right thing for him to do was to charge me in his presence! Since he never took any action himself then, which we can assume to mean that he was not unhappy, how is it they come up with it weeks or months later! That is why I keep repeating that this is a classic Kangaroo court.
I did believe that the charges before the court in the yelling case was politically motivated and that is why I said it. I would say it again if necessary, because that was the truth. At no time did I personally insult the judge which is what is necessary for a contempt charge.
Nevertheless I was brought to court the next day from prison in chains and asked to answer to these new contempt charges. Not wanting to stay a day longer in jail, I apologized and promised not to repeat any such criticism again and offered to delete 2 blog posts about that court hearing in this blog. In other words I did anything the judge wanted so as not to prolong my detention and in return no more jail time was imposed. I was released the next week after having spent 2 months in prison for the Belinda Ang Saw Ean case, and returned to California.
However since I had no intention to apologize nor delete those blog posts, which I did so that my detention will not be extended, immediately after I returned to California on Nov 2008, I retracted my apology in this blog, and re-posted the 2 blog posts which were earlier removed.
In this charge, I am accused of reneging on the apology and re-posting the 2 blog posts after my return to California.
Charge 5 again refers to a blog post I wrote after I returned to California concerning Singapore Judge Judith Prakash who had sentenced 3 men to jail sentences just because they wore T shirts with pictures of a Kangaroo dressed in judicial robes.
It is titled "Judith Prakash. Another Kangaroo Judge" of Nov 30, 2008. The men were found in the vicinity of the Belinda Ang Saw Ean's court. They did nothing objectionable, did not chant any slogans or do anything else illegal. Wearing T shirts with pictures of Kangaroos is not a contempt of court. In this blog post, in addition to stating the facts I wrote the words:
" Judge Judith Prakash of the Supreme Court Singapore had prostituted herself in her capacity as a judge hearing the Kangaroo T shirt case on November 24, 2008 by being nothing more than an employee of Lee Kuan Yew and his son, whom he appointed Prime Minister. By her actions in sending these young men to prison and making them pay crippling court costs of $5,000.00 each, she has shamefully disgraced herself, her office of a judge, disgraced the Singapore Constitution and disgraced Singapore." The charge refers to this.
Failure to provide discovery: Singapore's Law Society Lawyer has sent me a bundle among other papers titled Complainants Bundle of Authorities Volume 3, but he has not sent Volume 1 or 2 if these were supposed to be sent. The bundle has some cases but he conveniently leaves out cases which are clearly inapplicable, but refers to passages from them anyway, a highly disgraceful practice .
What this lawyer is trying to argue: Other than a lot of verbiage about the meaning of statutes and such like which is nothing more than a waste of print paper, he says, because of an English case, In re a Solicitor (1960)2 QB 212, he argues that like that English lawyer I should be disbarred. He conveniently fails to provide the full law report, but the little he provides about it goes like this. The lawyer was convicted in 1956 of 2 cases of indecent assault under Sec 34(15) of the Metropolitan Police Act and given the maximum sentence possible. The Singapore Law Society conveniently fails to state what exactly these 2 serious indecent assaults in 1956 involved. Did they involve molesting young children or molesting multiple women in broad daylight? What indecent assaults did he do? For this the lawyer was suspended from practice for 2 years. Subsequently in 1959, he was charged with insulting behavior where a breach of the peace occurred, for which he was disbarred, but again Singaporean Law Society lawyer provides no more details.
Either he takes us all for a bunch of fools or he himself is one. This English case has as much relevance to may case as a lion is similar to a mouse or a sparrow to an eagle, or bloody murder to pickpockets.
For one I have not committed 2 serious cases of indecent assault on anyone and I unlike the English lawyer is a Singapore dissident and democracy activist working hard to topple the Lee Kuan Yew regime. I am working in the public interest for a just cause unlike that English lawyer. Instead of facing disciplinary proceedings, I should be honored and appreciated for my work, which I happy to state ordinary Singaporeans and the rest of the world do.
Singaporean Law Society then refers to another case to justify my disbarment which he again conveniently fails to provide either the full law report or the full facts. In Law Society of Singapore vs Wong Sin Yee, he was charged and convicted of assaulting another as well as saying the words "why you call your father, call Lee Kuan Yew or f*****ing police". Except to say that this man assaulted someone, he did not say how many bones he broke, whether the man lost consciousness, why did he beat the man, was it premeditated, was it related to his client etc. Again this case has no comparison to mine. I have not assaulted anyone. And neither have I yelled at anyone. And even if I yelled at anyone, it cannot possibly be a ground for disbarring anyone.
Again, the Singaporean Law Society's lawyer argues that in Law Society Singapore v Tham Yu Xian Rick (1999) 3 SLR (R) 68, the fact that the offense was unrelated to his professional work did not matter. But here again, except to say this, he conveniently fails either to provide the full law report on this case or to give us the facts. For all we know, Tham Yu Xian may have raped several women and even though raping several women was not part of his law practice, surely he can be disbarred. But I have not raped several women, if in fact Tham Yu Xian Rick actually did it. Here again we see the Singapore Law Society's dishonesty in selectively concealing the facts by relying on mere sentences taken out of context to further their case.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then cites the case of Re Knight Glen Jeyasingham (1994) 3 SLR(R)366, where Jeyasingham was convicted under Section 6(c) of the Prevention of Corruption Act of using a false vehicle invoice to deceive his principle for which he was disbarred. Although the Law Society lawyer does not give any further information, it is common knowledge that Jeyasingham was a senior member of the Attorney Generals office who suddenly fell out of grace with Lee Kuan Yew government after which through a surprising series of events daily reported in the state controlled press, he was charged with criminal offices involving criminal breach of trust, which involved misusing his authority and office of Public Prosecutor, convicted of crimes and disbarred. Again Jeyasingham’s case of using a false vehicle invoice to deceive his principle has absolutely nothing to do with my case, no similarity whatsoever.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then refers to the case of Re Hilborne (1983 to 1984)SLR(R)322, where "Hilborne marched unannounced and without prior appointment into the private chamber of a Judge alone, was discourteous rude and insolent to the late judge. He threatened to report the judge to high authority and addressed the judge in an angry manner". Hilborne was asked to show cause but since he was an Englishman returned to England and had nothing more to do with Singapore or their legal system. I on the other hand have not been discourteous to any judge in any courtroom or chambers. I did write a blog post in this blog about Belinda Ang Saw Ean. This case of Hilborne has absolutely no relevance to mine, again an instance of comparing of apples with oranges.
The Singaporean Law Society lawyer refers to another politically motivated case against me which was decided in 1993, at which time I was already in California. The case is Re Gopalan Nair (1993)1SLR375. The background to this case is as follows. In the late 1980s, JB Jeyaretnam was a staunch critic of Lee Kuan Yew. This is what happened. Lee Kuan Yew sued Jeyaretnam for several hundred thousands of dollars for defamation and won, as he always does.
Unable to pay Lee Kuan Yew, Jeyaretnam's Workers Party was made bankrupt. Jeyaretnam was trying to raise funds to pay this, because otherwise he too would be bankrupt. He asked the public for donations and asked me to be his trustee for the funds which I gladly agreed.
Among the many checks from donors, were 2 checks for small amounts about $100 or so payable to the Workers Party. Jeyaretnam had asked them to change the name of the payee from Workers Party to Jeyaretnam because, if the money went to Workers Party which was under bankruptcy, Jeyaretnam would not receive the money since it would go the Government Trustee. It appears the 2 gladly changed the payee's name to Jeyaretnam. As a result of this, even though the law was very clear that the money does not belong to Workers Party until they receive it, and the drawer of the check is free to change the name of the payee anytime, the Singapore court found Jeyaretnam guilty of criminal breach of trust and convicted him. The Government (or Lee Kuan Yew’s argument), believe it or not, was that once the drawer of the check writes a payee’s name, any attempt to change it to someone else is a breach of trust against the original payee!
Secondly, arising from these 2 checks, Jeyaretnam did not disclose these funds in his financial declaration of the Workers Party since this money did not belong to the party, but the court found that the money was indeed that of the party and convicted him of making a false declaration.
As a result Jeyaretnam was convicted of these false criminal offenses and disbarred. Jeyaretnam appealed his disbarment to the Privy Council in London. The parties to the case were JB Jeyaretnam and the Singaporean Law Society.
At the commencement of the London hearing the Judges had specifically asked the lawyer for the Singaporean Law Society in the 1980s, whether the Singapore Attorney General was aware of the hearing and whether he wanted to be heard, since the court was going to look into the legality of Jeyaretnam's alleged crimes. The answer the judges got from the Law Society lawyer was that the Singapore Attorney General, Tan Boon Teik was aware of the hearing and had not filed any request to appear in the proceedings. Satisfied with that the court went on the hear the case.
At the conclusion of the hearing their Lordships in London correctly stated the law that Jeyaretnam was not guilty of any crimes and made the following scathing attack on Singapore's corrupt legal system,
"Their Lordships have to record their deep disquiet that by a series of misjudgments, the appellant and his co-accused Wong, have suffered a grievous injustice. They have been fined, imprisoned and publicly disgraced for offences of which they are not guilty. The appellant, in addition, has been deprived of his seat in Parliament and disqualified for a year from practicing his profession. Their Lordships order restores him to the roll of advocates and solicitors of the Supreme Court of Singapore, but, because of the course taken by the criminal proceedings, their Lordships have no power to right the other wrongs which the appellant and Wong have suffered. Their only prospect of redress, their Lordships understand, will be by way of petition for pardon to the President of the Republic of Singapore."
This was a slap in the face for Lee Kuan Yew and a public humiliation of monumental proportions to his legal system which for the first time told the world that Lee Kuan Yew uses the law with the collaboration and connivance of his judges, prosecutors and the police to abuse the law for his political ends.
When Jeyaretnam returned from London with the verdict, he was certainly in high spirits. He could resume his practice and the English court vindicated his good name and showed Lee Kuan Yew and his government as nothing more than a tin pot dictatorship.
As the law then stood, although the London court could reinstate Jeyaretnam to the Singapore Bar, they could not reverse the criminal convictions against him since Singapore law only allowed criminal cases to appeal up to the Singapore High Court and no more. Therefore the only avenue available to Jeyartenam to clear his name was a request for a pardon from the President of Singapore.
Jeyaretnam did proceed to apply for a pardon which the President of Singapore denied through his Attorney General, Tan Boon Teik. Tan's letter as to why he refused the pardon was published in Singapore's state controlled press. His reasons were that 1)"because JB Jeyaretnam did not show remorse repentance and contrition for the crimes he committed, the President will not pardon him" and 2) because he (Tan Boon Teik) was not given an opportunity to appear at the London hearing the verdict of the court is flawed. But surely there is something wrong here. If in fact the London's Privy Council had said he is not guilty of any crimes, how does one show "remorse, repentance and contrition" for a crime one did not commit! If in fact anyone should show "remorse repentance and contrition" it should surely be Lee Kuan Yew himself for the crimes he committed by disgracefully misusing the law to destroy his political opponents.
This is where I come in. Naturally I was very angry reading Tan Boon Teik's response. So I wrote to Tan asking him why he says Jeyaretnam committed crimes when the Privy Council categorically stated that he was innocent and why did he say that he was not given an opportunity to appear in the London court when the Judges clearly asked about this and were told he did not want to appear. Tan's first response to me was that he was not involved and that if I needed answers I should ask Jeyaretnam. Not satisfied with his answer which was clearly unresponsive, I sent him another very polite letter telling him that his statements were contrary to the facts and that he should explain himself, otherwise I will make public the correspondence between him and me within 14 days. Not receiving any further response from him, I faxed my letters to him and his to me to all lawyers in Singapore.
The Singapore Law Society through the insistence of Tan brought charges, which were that I threatened the Attorney General demanding responses and threatening to publish them, that I threatened the Attorney General to give me satisfactory replies within a stipulated time and that I falsely accused the Attorney General of not wanting to be heard at Jeyaretnam's trial in London. After a prolonged Disciplinary hearing which lasted several months in Singapore, in which Martin Thomas QC, Jeyaretnam's London lawyer and Rose QC, the Singapore Law Society's London Counsel also gave evidence, I was found guilty. Before the matter came to the High Court of Singapore for sentencing, soon after I was found guilty, I left Singapore permanently in disgust, not wanting to practice in a Kangaroo court system like this. In 1993 when I was already in California, the matter came before three judges in the High Court, 2 of them being Yong Pong Howe and GP Selvam who suspended me from practice for 2 years.
There could not have been a greater travesty of justice than this. There is obviously nothing wrong for a lawyer to write a letter to an Attorney General demanding an explanation and telling him that if an explanation is not received within a stipulated time, those letters would be publicly distributed. I did not threaten to harm him or do anything to him. Yet surely this "threat", which they call a “threat” which was to publish correspondence for the public to know and telling him that what he said about not having a chance to appear in the London court was untrue cannot possibly be unethical. Yet the Singapore Law Society is trying to use my own case for being suspended for 2 years from practicing law just because I demanded answers from the Attorney General to have me disbarred!
From that moment, I made up my mind that I am going to fight this dictatorship for as along as I can which is why these proceedings are going on.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer then refers to the case of Ravi Madasamy (2007)2SLR(R) 300, where Madasamy admitted to a number of occasions where he had shown disrespect to a judge/judges before whom he appeared for his clients. He was suspended from practice for this for one year. Madasamy's case is nowhere similar to mine, again a case of comparing apples to oranges. I was never discourteous to any judge before whom I appeared. I wrote a blog post criticizing Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean's egregious absence of integrity as a judge and I stated with all decorum and civility in my "yelling at policemen case" that the case brought against me was politically motivated. Madasamy on the other hand decides to be disrespectful to the judge before whom he appears in court.
The Singaporean Law Society Lawyer has several more pages and passages where he states that I had shown no remorse, that I had no respect for the Singapore courts and that I had breached my undertaking to the court in Singapore when I withdrew my apology which I gave to the judge for the contempt charges. Yes I have no respect whatsoever for this puny tin pot tyrant's courts in Singapore which has now undoubtedly become the laughing stock of the world. You now have only 3,000 lawyers or less left in a country of 5 million and very soon with even more leaving; you will have to represent both sides of the argument.
Lee Kuan Yew, I can tell you is a fool. Abusing the law to stay in power is simply counter productive. It simply will not work.
This Internet is not good for the one party dictatorship which this Singapore lawyer is trying to protect. This blog post is going to be read throughout the world, mainly by Singaporeans Americans Australians and the rest of the world. It is not going to look good for the one party state with an 88 year despot who will die anytime soon.
I am waiting for the Disciplinary committee to make its finding which they have not yet done although it has been more than 2 years since the accusation, the delay very probably is because they don't know what to do now. With the Internet and everything about this case in the open, they are hard pressed to come up with a justification for disbarment, which is what they want to do. As the saying goes, I have got them by the neck.
And furthermore once the Committee decides, the matter would have to go the court which will decide the punishment.
I am not going to stop this work. I am thankful to God for this opportunity to fight the one party state which retains power by abusing the law.
As my case continues to unfold in public, I expect even more Singapore lawyers to either leave the profession or leave the country entirely in disgust as they have been doing to the present pathetic state of less than 3,000 lawyers. This is a pressure the one party state cannot possibly withstand.
This issue will continue to be alive and will be read in places as far away as Israel and Byelorussia. And what is written in this blog will exist for the world to read in perpetuity, which surely has to be very bad news for Lee Kuan Yew’s one party state and it’s state controlled judiciary.
And finally one piece of advice to this Singapore establishment. Pick your victims carefully, and try to avoid those such as myself who have an education and are passionate about such things as freedom. They may not roll over and act dead as you expect. Some of them may fight back, and in this day of the Internet, it may be you, not him that gets hurt.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Law Society of Singapore vs Gopalan Nair, Whats happening!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In several blog posts here, I have written about Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Law Society actions to have me disbarred for criticizing their judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean's shameless exhibition in Singapore High Court in May 2008 by deciding Lee's defamation case against Dr. Chee Soon Juan in Lee's favor in nothing more than a Stalinist show trial.
Even though the incident was way back in May 2008, up till now, nothing much has happened. I am still waiting for the matter to come to court after more than 2 years! I suspect the government now finds itself in a bind. The fact that Singapore's Law Society which is supposed to be independent is in fact an extension of the one party state government is already well known and these proceedings which were intended to intimidate me to keep me silent, is simply not happening.
What is more, internationally respected organizations such as the United Nations, Reporter Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous other organizations and state governments have taken an interest in my case, which Lee Kuan Yew knows is untenable, because in nowhere in the world can you discipline someone for something such as this. It would only be seen as repression of critics who dare challenge Lee's one party state.
With the recent imprisonment of Alan Shadrake which has attracted universal denunciation from the free world for punishing free speech, Lee Kuan Yew finds that going after me now is untimely, and a bad mistake. I think that is the reason why he has not ordered his Law Society to proceed just now.
Only a cowardly government would stoop to such cowardly tactics to try to preserve their fast diminishing credibility in the eyes of the world.
I can assure you the one party state apparatus is reading every word that is written here, as you have seen how fast they arrested me in Singapore for writing that fateful Belinda Ang Saw Ean blog post in May 2008.
My question to the Singapore Law Society is this. What are they afraid of now? If you feel that I should be disbarred do it now. Stop this playing hide and seek. Let me remind you that you are losing your credibility by the minute for having waited this long since May 2008. Any other respectable Law Society in the world would have proceeded against me within a month or at most 2 months. If you haven't already, you are going to lose all your credibility if you wait any longer.
If it helps you to speed these proceedings I will repeat what I said about your Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in my May 2008 blog post which got me arrested here:
"The judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders".
The words "prostituting yourself" means someone who is in authority abusing her power for a dishonest or base purpose. This is what Belinda Ang Sew Ean was doing so shamefully that day in court. She was disgracing the office of a judge in public by publicly abusing the law to benefit herself and Lee Kuan Yew her master.
So perhaps since I have repeated the objectionable words again in this blog (even though I have done the same numerous times before), will the Singaporean Law Society and the Singapore one party state government who are reading this please proceed to have this case fixed in court for hearing without any further delay.
You have got yourself in this fix through your own actions. Now I am going to hold you to account.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
In several blog posts here, I have written about Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore Law Society actions to have me disbarred for criticizing their judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean's shameless exhibition in Singapore High Court in May 2008 by deciding Lee's defamation case against Dr. Chee Soon Juan in Lee's favor in nothing more than a Stalinist show trial.
Even though the incident was way back in May 2008, up till now, nothing much has happened. I am still waiting for the matter to come to court after more than 2 years! I suspect the government now finds itself in a bind. The fact that Singapore's Law Society which is supposed to be independent is in fact an extension of the one party state government is already well known and these proceedings which were intended to intimidate me to keep me silent, is simply not happening.
What is more, internationally respected organizations such as the United Nations, Reporter Without Borders, Committee to Protect Journalists and numerous other organizations and state governments have taken an interest in my case, which Lee Kuan Yew knows is untenable, because in nowhere in the world can you discipline someone for something such as this. It would only be seen as repression of critics who dare challenge Lee's one party state.
With the recent imprisonment of Alan Shadrake which has attracted universal denunciation from the free world for punishing free speech, Lee Kuan Yew finds that going after me now is untimely, and a bad mistake. I think that is the reason why he has not ordered his Law Society to proceed just now.
Only a cowardly government would stoop to such cowardly tactics to try to preserve their fast diminishing credibility in the eyes of the world.
I can assure you the one party state apparatus is reading every word that is written here, as you have seen how fast they arrested me in Singapore for writing that fateful Belinda Ang Saw Ean blog post in May 2008.
My question to the Singapore Law Society is this. What are they afraid of now? If you feel that I should be disbarred do it now. Stop this playing hide and seek. Let me remind you that you are losing your credibility by the minute for having waited this long since May 2008. Any other respectable Law Society in the world would have proceeded against me within a month or at most 2 months. If you haven't already, you are going to lose all your credibility if you wait any longer.
If it helps you to speed these proceedings I will repeat what I said about your Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean in my May 2008 blog post which got me arrested here:
"The judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders".
The words "prostituting yourself" means someone who is in authority abusing her power for a dishonest or base purpose. This is what Belinda Ang Sew Ean was doing so shamefully that day in court. She was disgracing the office of a judge in public by publicly abusing the law to benefit herself and Lee Kuan Yew her master.
So perhaps since I have repeated the objectionable words again in this blog (even though I have done the same numerous times before), will the Singaporean Law Society and the Singapore one party state government who are reading this please proceed to have this case fixed in court for hearing without any further delay.
You have got yourself in this fix through your own actions. Now I am going to hold you to account.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The need to confront Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
Ladies and Gentleman,
We should not forget the constraints under which Singaporeans live, which makes any suggestion of parliamentary elections a complete joke. If the opposition are under the illusion of winning seats, they must stop smoking whatever they are smoking right now, and come down to earth.
The entire media is controlled by Big Brother which completely ignores the opposition as if they do not exist making people completely ignorant of them. Only yesterday in California, I was at a laundrette talking to a Chinese Student from the Peoples Republic of China to whom I asked what he thought of the Nobel Prize going to Liu Xiabo, to which he had replied that he never heard of him before! The Chinese press is so tightly censored that the vast majority of Chinese have never heard of him, just as they have never heard of democracy, never heard of any rights and living in complete ignorant bliss!
It is as if they have completely given themselves up to their rulers and what is more surprising, they are very happy with it!
Although Singapore is not exactly Communist China, as far as information goes, it is not vastly different. The vast majority have heard of Dr. Chee Soon Juan but not exactly what he really is, but someone who is maligned, vilified and a pervert of sorts.
This manipulation of the press and denial of free and fair information is illegal under Singapore law, but as the people are either terrified or stupid or both, no one questions them and in this method, they prevent any honest democratic politician ever being elected.
As for the Chinese student I met in California, he seemed quite half dead, both in body and spirit. He was a frail looking character who wanted to return to China instead of living in California because he admitted having been brainwashed for 3,000years he cannot change. He had no complaint about his country, about what they did to his countryman Nobel Laureate, and as soon as he got his clothes out of the machine quietly wished me goodbye and left. Frankly he didn't seem very different from the average Singaporean.
And together with the abuse of the legal system with the judiciary controlled by Lee, the lack of workers rights, and the lack of any rights for that matter, Dr. Chee Soon Juan already knows even before stepping into the elections that he doesn't stand a chance in a million. Low Thia Khiang and Chiam See Tong are of course going to win because they have nothing to say about anything and if Kenneth, the late Jeyaretnam's son behaves the same as he is now, which is really nothing, he too will win, because that is exactly what Lee Kuan Yew wants. But Singapore has not and will not get any better with Low, Chiam and Kenneth because their presence in Parliament is useless. It is no different if instead of them, you added a few more cabinets.
What we need is controversy, what we need is public disorder, what we need is civil disobedience; what we need is daily protests on the streets demanding a change for the better. What we need is the daily arrest of good people being paraded before the courts for doing nothing more than than exercising their constitutional rights. What we need is for the people to watch this government misusing their powers on a daily basis and there will come a time very soon, even tomorrow when the people will say no more. That is the moment that we want.
Remember there is sympathy in the ground, let us not forget that. Yes, very great sympathy. Many may not realise the extent of the abuse either because of ignorance or fear but at the same time there are many who are just waiting for the moment when they will break their chains and set themselves free.
There are many foreigners too in our midst who just deplore the state of the lives in Singapore. They too will join only if you did.
Controversy and public disorder is not wrong, it is essential when the government is abusing your every right. And daily instances in public of peaceful protests with stark images across the screen of police dragging away innocent people to jail is just what will change the entire island. You are not wrong in protesting against illegal and unconstitutional rules and laws.
I can assure you the elections will not change anything. What they will do is to place a few more goons for the impression of a democracy. And furthermore Lee is aware that there are many unhappy people today, and therefore make sure of rigging the elections any which way he can not to repeat the 1981 election result of the late JB Jeyaretnam's win. The true opposition, meaning Dr. Chee Soon Juan's SDP don't stand a chance in the world and the sooner we admit this fact the better.
The only hope I see for Singapore is Dr. Chee Soon Juan's Singapore Democratic Party but if they are simply going to contest elections and nothing more, the cows will eventually come home before any change happens.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
We should not forget the constraints under which Singaporeans live, which makes any suggestion of parliamentary elections a complete joke. If the opposition are under the illusion of winning seats, they must stop smoking whatever they are smoking right now, and come down to earth.
The entire media is controlled by Big Brother which completely ignores the opposition as if they do not exist making people completely ignorant of them. Only yesterday in California, I was at a laundrette talking to a Chinese Student from the Peoples Republic of China to whom I asked what he thought of the Nobel Prize going to Liu Xiabo, to which he had replied that he never heard of him before! The Chinese press is so tightly censored that the vast majority of Chinese have never heard of him, just as they have never heard of democracy, never heard of any rights and living in complete ignorant bliss!
It is as if they have completely given themselves up to their rulers and what is more surprising, they are very happy with it!
Although Singapore is not exactly Communist China, as far as information goes, it is not vastly different. The vast majority have heard of Dr. Chee Soon Juan but not exactly what he really is, but someone who is maligned, vilified and a pervert of sorts.
This manipulation of the press and denial of free and fair information is illegal under Singapore law, but as the people are either terrified or stupid or both, no one questions them and in this method, they prevent any honest democratic politician ever being elected.
As for the Chinese student I met in California, he seemed quite half dead, both in body and spirit. He was a frail looking character who wanted to return to China instead of living in California because he admitted having been brainwashed for 3,000years he cannot change. He had no complaint about his country, about what they did to his countryman Nobel Laureate, and as soon as he got his clothes out of the machine quietly wished me goodbye and left. Frankly he didn't seem very different from the average Singaporean.
And together with the abuse of the legal system with the judiciary controlled by Lee, the lack of workers rights, and the lack of any rights for that matter, Dr. Chee Soon Juan already knows even before stepping into the elections that he doesn't stand a chance in a million. Low Thia Khiang and Chiam See Tong are of course going to win because they have nothing to say about anything and if Kenneth, the late Jeyaretnam's son behaves the same as he is now, which is really nothing, he too will win, because that is exactly what Lee Kuan Yew wants. But Singapore has not and will not get any better with Low, Chiam and Kenneth because their presence in Parliament is useless. It is no different if instead of them, you added a few more cabinets.
What we need is controversy, what we need is public disorder, what we need is civil disobedience; what we need is daily protests on the streets demanding a change for the better. What we need is the daily arrest of good people being paraded before the courts for doing nothing more than than exercising their constitutional rights. What we need is for the people to watch this government misusing their powers on a daily basis and there will come a time very soon, even tomorrow when the people will say no more. That is the moment that we want.
Remember there is sympathy in the ground, let us not forget that. Yes, very great sympathy. Many may not realise the extent of the abuse either because of ignorance or fear but at the same time there are many who are just waiting for the moment when they will break their chains and set themselves free.
There are many foreigners too in our midst who just deplore the state of the lives in Singapore. They too will join only if you did.
Controversy and public disorder is not wrong, it is essential when the government is abusing your every right. And daily instances in public of peaceful protests with stark images across the screen of police dragging away innocent people to jail is just what will change the entire island. You are not wrong in protesting against illegal and unconstitutional rules and laws.
I can assure you the elections will not change anything. What they will do is to place a few more goons for the impression of a democracy. And furthermore Lee is aware that there are many unhappy people today, and therefore make sure of rigging the elections any which way he can not to repeat the 1981 election result of the late JB Jeyaretnam's win. The true opposition, meaning Dr. Chee Soon Juan's SDP don't stand a chance in the world and the sooner we admit this fact the better.
The only hope I see for Singapore is Dr. Chee Soon Juan's Singapore Democratic Party but if they are simply going to contest elections and nothing more, the cows will eventually come home before any change happens.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Monday, December 20, 2010
Singapore's weird model children
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled propaganda sheet, Straits Times, which they call a newspaper has a story in it's online edition of Dec 19, 2010 titled "Leaving no child behind". Believe it or not, it praises a 7 year old child who decided that his recess time in school should be spent at the library, instead of playing as other normal children do! And what is more, he is set out as an example for other children to follow, which is, at recess don't play; instead go to the library and do more reading, at the age of 7!
Not too long ago in this blog, I wrote of another example of Singapore's weird best children, in that case a 7 year old child who decided to give all his money to charity, instead of keeping it for his own toys or candy!
In this Dec 19, 2010 story, a Malay child whose father is an odd job worker and a mother who is a housewife, suddenly it appears decided to change completely and become a bookworm at the age of 7, instead of being a normal child like any other and playing.
Any person from the rest of the world who is normal and sane, would rather send both of these children to the mental hospital because any 7 year old child who prefers doing research in the library or someone who would rather give up all his money to charity at that age would have thought these children are aberrations and mental cases who need treatment rather being held out as model children for others to follow.
When I was a 7 year old child my parents had a hard time keeping me indoors as all I had in my mind was play. And as for money, I never had enough of it for toys and whatever else. The Singapore authorities do not appear to realize that these are not traits that one would want in 7 year old children. God intended children to play and by forcing them to keep reading, which I think is what these parents are in fact doing, is actually torturing them and destroying their minds instead of developing it. In fact they are destroying their very childhoods. These tortured children do not grow up normal and end up with long term personal problems. Instead of brilliance they are producing misfits. Nut cases. The sooner the parents realize this the better.
Learning is a life long process. Cramming them with knowledge at an early age did not achieve anything. They have their entire lives to learn. At 7 they should be playing football, fighting and whatever else 7 year olds do. In my case, except for primary school when I did well, I was a total failure in Secondary school even though I finally caught up.
And that did not prevent me from becoming a lawyer, coming to America and being a lifelong thorn on the side of the Singaporean dictator Lee Kuan Yew of whom almost every other Singaporean is terrified out of his wits. Not bad for someone who spent most of his childhood daydreaming and playing, eh?
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore's state controlled propaganda sheet, Straits Times, which they call a newspaper has a story in it's online edition of Dec 19, 2010 titled "Leaving no child behind". Believe it or not, it praises a 7 year old child who decided that his recess time in school should be spent at the library, instead of playing as other normal children do! And what is more, he is set out as an example for other children to follow, which is, at recess don't play; instead go to the library and do more reading, at the age of 7!
Not too long ago in this blog, I wrote of another example of Singapore's weird best children, in that case a 7 year old child who decided to give all his money to charity, instead of keeping it for his own toys or candy!
In this Dec 19, 2010 story, a Malay child whose father is an odd job worker and a mother who is a housewife, suddenly it appears decided to change completely and become a bookworm at the age of 7, instead of being a normal child like any other and playing.
Any person from the rest of the world who is normal and sane, would rather send both of these children to the mental hospital because any 7 year old child who prefers doing research in the library or someone who would rather give up all his money to charity at that age would have thought these children are aberrations and mental cases who need treatment rather being held out as model children for others to follow.
When I was a 7 year old child my parents had a hard time keeping me indoors as all I had in my mind was play. And as for money, I never had enough of it for toys and whatever else. The Singapore authorities do not appear to realize that these are not traits that one would want in 7 year old children. God intended children to play and by forcing them to keep reading, which I think is what these parents are in fact doing, is actually torturing them and destroying their minds instead of developing it. In fact they are destroying their very childhoods. These tortured children do not grow up normal and end up with long term personal problems. Instead of brilliance they are producing misfits. Nut cases. The sooner the parents realize this the better.
Learning is a life long process. Cramming them with knowledge at an early age did not achieve anything. They have their entire lives to learn. At 7 they should be playing football, fighting and whatever else 7 year olds do. In my case, except for primary school when I did well, I was a total failure in Secondary school even though I finally caught up.
And that did not prevent me from becoming a lawyer, coming to America and being a lifelong thorn on the side of the Singaporean dictator Lee Kuan Yew of whom almost every other Singaporean is terrified out of his wits. Not bad for someone who spent most of his childhood daydreaming and playing, eh?
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Singaporeans going nude, a step in the right direction
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore state controlled newspaper, or propaganda sheet, the Straits Times online edition of Dec 18, 2010 has the story "More people going nude". It says the number of people going naked in public there has increased, a phenomenon most improbable for a strait laced island where even Playboy is banned.
The report says on Sunday an unidentified man in his 20s, went to MacDonald's in Queensway naked. On Thursday, a tattooed man sat on a pavement in Ang Mo Kio for several hours before being arrested.
In another report in this paper of Dec 17, 2010 titled "Woman arrested for boarding bus in the buff", a 50 year old woman fully dressed, at a bus stop, quietly took off all her clothes, baring all, and carefully put them in her basket before boarding Bus 22 naked! Given her age of 50 years, one may say there is nothing very much to see, but still quite an acheivement, surely.
I would not blame anyone accusing me of being some sort of an exhibitionist from the title of this post, but I can assure you I am not.
Nevertheless I think it is a step in the right direction because I don't think the nudity is because they have suddenly become ultra liberals or sun worshippers, rather I think the reasons lie elsewhere; perhaps a protest of sorts against the repression they live under Lee Kuan Yew's one party Stalinist state.
Though I may be completely wrong, the reason I think is this. Singaporeans know they are living under a dictatorship pure and simple, with no free press, no independent judiciary, with no right to free speech or expression, or the right to peacefully assemble. In other words they know they have no rights at all.
While they want to protest these injustices, they dare not, because to do it in Singapore is nothing short of suicidal, resulting in dismissal from jobs (take Dr. Chee Soon Juan's case of dismissal from professorship), demotion in careers, and life long persecution at the hands of this merciless octogenarian. So instead of protesting against human rights denials, they instead do it indirectly, through public nudity, which they know does not result in the painful punishments they would otherwise suffer.
Deliberately going out in public naked, I think, is a form of protest against the government's excesses and repression. And if my thinking is correct on this, it should be welcome because protesting this way, would very probably lead to the real thing, protesting openly for their rights, with their clothes on this time. That I hope is the case here.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore state controlled newspaper, or propaganda sheet, the Straits Times online edition of Dec 18, 2010 has the story "More people going nude". It says the number of people going naked in public there has increased, a phenomenon most improbable for a strait laced island where even Playboy is banned.
The report says on Sunday an unidentified man in his 20s, went to MacDonald's in Queensway naked. On Thursday, a tattooed man sat on a pavement in Ang Mo Kio for several hours before being arrested.
In another report in this paper of Dec 17, 2010 titled "Woman arrested for boarding bus in the buff", a 50 year old woman fully dressed, at a bus stop, quietly took off all her clothes, baring all, and carefully put them in her basket before boarding Bus 22 naked! Given her age of 50 years, one may say there is nothing very much to see, but still quite an acheivement, surely.
I would not blame anyone accusing me of being some sort of an exhibitionist from the title of this post, but I can assure you I am not.
Nevertheless I think it is a step in the right direction because I don't think the nudity is because they have suddenly become ultra liberals or sun worshippers, rather I think the reasons lie elsewhere; perhaps a protest of sorts against the repression they live under Lee Kuan Yew's one party Stalinist state.
Though I may be completely wrong, the reason I think is this. Singaporeans know they are living under a dictatorship pure and simple, with no free press, no independent judiciary, with no right to free speech or expression, or the right to peacefully assemble. In other words they know they have no rights at all.
While they want to protest these injustices, they dare not, because to do it in Singapore is nothing short of suicidal, resulting in dismissal from jobs (take Dr. Chee Soon Juan's case of dismissal from professorship), demotion in careers, and life long persecution at the hands of this merciless octogenarian. So instead of protesting against human rights denials, they instead do it indirectly, through public nudity, which they know does not result in the painful punishments they would otherwise suffer.
Deliberately going out in public naked, I think, is a form of protest against the government's excesses and repression. And if my thinking is correct on this, it should be welcome because protesting this way, would very probably lead to the real thing, protesting openly for their rights, with their clothes on this time. That I hope is the case here.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
The state of Singapore Dissident
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It will be 4 years on Dec 23, 2010 that this blog Singapore Dissident has been writing. Singapore Dissident has come a long way since it started on Dec 23, 2006. Ironically the readership grew multi fold thanks to Lee Kuan Yew's one party state, when they arrested me in 2008 May for writing a blog criticizing his judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who shamelessly abused every principle of law to punish Dr. Chee Soon Juan, Lee's political bete noir. Since then it has continued to grow and today it is being read throughout the world with Singaporeans naturally leading that readership. Here are the latest statistics. My purpose is to expose this regime, a regime bad for the island and it's future. I think I managing to do this.
From May 2010 up till now, the countries that have had the most visits in descending order, and the number of page reviews, are:
Singapore 121,139
United States 37,222
Australia 10,552
Canada 7,999
Malaysia 6,824
United Kingdom 4,899
Germany 1,657
Netherlands 1,005
Hong Kong 792
Philippines 756
Similarly for this period the most read blog posts and the number of visits are as follows:
1. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew's wife dies, do we grieve...
Oct 2, 2010, 23 comments 1,220 Pageviews
2. Singapore, not for Indians or Malays Jun 30, 2010, 9 comments 816 Pageviews
3. Toppling the Singapore dictatorship by digging the... Nov 4, 2010, 10 comments 518 Pageviews
4. Singapore, "Law Drama" starring Oliver Fricker.
Jun 25, 2010, 5 comments 466 Pageviews
5. My advice to Lee Kuan Yew's son, step down while y... Oct 3, 2010, 29 comments 446 Pageviews
6. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew hospitalized and the enti... Sep 29, 2010, 16 comments 444 Pageviews
7. Singapore's Commonwealth Games "victories" Oct 9, 2010, 9 comments 438 Pageviews
8. Foreign Policy Magazine votes Gopalan Nair "World'...
Nov 29, 2010, 17 comments 380 Pageviews
9. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore forces foreigners to beco... Sep 10, 2010, 5 comments 377 Pageviews
10. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore arrests Alan Shadrake. Jul 18, 2010, 7 comments 353 Pageviews
The above are only the countries who have most visited it and the blog posts most read. As for the total audience and the blog posts, there have been readers from every single country in the world including such far off ones as Latvia or Moldavia and every single blog post has been read.
Funnily now, I remember Lee Kuan Yew's minister Vivian Balakrishnan, one of his usual hand picked toady's dismissing blogs in general, as inconsequential and not a threat to his party claiming that they have "a readership of one, the author!". It appears his arrogance had got the better of him and now he has egg on his face, a lot egg. Singapore Dissident's page reviews is not just Gopalan Nair alone, it exceeds 100,000 in Singapore alone, for just the last 6 months.
I think Singapore Dissident is indeed making a difference to the perception of what Singapore actually is as opposed to what Lee Kuan Yew want the world to believe, through his state controlled propaganda.
I say a very big Thank You to you the readers and please continue to spread the word. 88 year old Lee Kuan Yew's regime will have a hard time continuing in their merry way of lies, more lies and brazen dishonesty.
And with coming of a more open and freer Singapore, I will be satisfied.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
It will be 4 years on Dec 23, 2010 that this blog Singapore Dissident has been writing. Singapore Dissident has come a long way since it started on Dec 23, 2006. Ironically the readership grew multi fold thanks to Lee Kuan Yew's one party state, when they arrested me in 2008 May for writing a blog criticizing his judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who shamelessly abused every principle of law to punish Dr. Chee Soon Juan, Lee's political bete noir. Since then it has continued to grow and today it is being read throughout the world with Singaporeans naturally leading that readership. Here are the latest statistics. My purpose is to expose this regime, a regime bad for the island and it's future. I think I managing to do this.
From May 2010 up till now, the countries that have had the most visits in descending order, and the number of page reviews, are:
Singapore 121,139
United States 37,222
Australia 10,552
Canada 7,999
Malaysia 6,824
United Kingdom 4,899
Germany 1,657
Netherlands 1,005
Hong Kong 792
Philippines 756
Similarly for this period the most read blog posts and the number of visits are as follows:
1. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew's wife dies, do we grieve...
Oct 2, 2010, 23 comments 1,220 Pageviews
2. Singapore, not for Indians or Malays Jun 30, 2010, 9 comments 816 Pageviews
3. Toppling the Singapore dictatorship by digging the... Nov 4, 2010, 10 comments 518 Pageviews
4. Singapore, "Law Drama" starring Oliver Fricker.
Jun 25, 2010, 5 comments 466 Pageviews
5. My advice to Lee Kuan Yew's son, step down while y... Oct 3, 2010, 29 comments 446 Pageviews
6. Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew hospitalized and the enti... Sep 29, 2010, 16 comments 444 Pageviews
7. Singapore's Commonwealth Games "victories" Oct 9, 2010, 9 comments 438 Pageviews
8. Foreign Policy Magazine votes Gopalan Nair "World'...
Nov 29, 2010, 17 comments 380 Pageviews
9. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore forces foreigners to beco... Sep 10, 2010, 5 comments 377 Pageviews
10. Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore arrests Alan Shadrake. Jul 18, 2010, 7 comments 353 Pageviews
The above are only the countries who have most visited it and the blog posts most read. As for the total audience and the blog posts, there have been readers from every single country in the world including such far off ones as Latvia or Moldavia and every single blog post has been read.
Funnily now, I remember Lee Kuan Yew's minister Vivian Balakrishnan, one of his usual hand picked toady's dismissing blogs in general, as inconsequential and not a threat to his party claiming that they have "a readership of one, the author!". It appears his arrogance had got the better of him and now he has egg on his face, a lot egg. Singapore Dissident's page reviews is not just Gopalan Nair alone, it exceeds 100,000 in Singapore alone, for just the last 6 months.
I think Singapore Dissident is indeed making a difference to the perception of what Singapore actually is as opposed to what Lee Kuan Yew want the world to believe, through his state controlled propaganda.
I say a very big Thank You to you the readers and please continue to spread the word. 88 year old Lee Kuan Yew's regime will have a hard time continuing in their merry way of lies, more lies and brazen dishonesty.
And with coming of a more open and freer Singapore, I will be satisfied.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Singapore, like master like servant
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times online edition of Dec 15, 2010 has the story "Punishing for suicide bids". The story ran in the wake of a string of suicides, mounting in number, with a case yesterday being reported of a
Chinese national resident in Singapore (Singapore is almost a satellite Communist China city now), a woman who had almost miraculously survived a fall of 10 floors from her high rise apartment into it's swimming pool. The newspaper story was the government thinking aloud, as is the very purpose of the state controlled propaganda that is dished out daily, of whether these suicide attempts should be punished.
The fact is, as would be known by anyone following the Singapore propoganda that many bad practices, for want of a better phrase, are taking hold in the island. For one, there are suicides in the island everyday, the preferred method being jumping off the ubiquitous skyscrapers which has pigeon holes (tiny little apartments) in them where the Lee Kuan Yew's "digits" live (digit is the term Lee Kuan Yew once referred to his people), without parachutes. When they fall, there is the expected loud thud, the police come with the ambulance and the dead person is carted away within a few minutes and the blood hosed off with water. In the past people used to watch in horror but today it is so commonplace and since most Singaporeans have seen at least one suicide, they don't care anymore.
Also you recently have the rampant mayhem and murder in public by youths as young as 8. Since guns are unavailable in the island, to kill and maim, they bring along knives, swords and machetes. It is possible to see young teenagers in gangs walking along the streets brandishing the deadly weapons as if they were quietly going on a hunt. And then after they have killed or maimed their enemies, the bloody gory pictures of a boy dying in a pool of blood are shown in the propaganda sheets almost as s form of entertainment. The people who say Singapore is a safe place have to have their heads examined.
Lee Kuan Yew as we know has no religion. A reading of him tells us that he did not care too much for such things as principles, or care and compassion. To him, what mattered was to win over your competition, no matter how it is done, which in his case was to abuse the legal system to destroy his opponents, control the press and deny press freedom and to defame or jail anyone that questions his authority. And as the saying goes, Singaporeans over whom he rules as the supreme ruler naturally think that is the way to live. Like Master like Servant.
And these killings, suicides and the unprecedented number of criminals who cheat and defraud has to be a reflection of what Lee Kuan Yew himself believes.
Singaporeans today are by far an irreligious people. If they had a religion, it has to be money, just as Lee Kuan Yew believes. And because Singaporeans have no constitution or a set of rights, they are like a people without a direction or a foundation. Just like Lee Kuan Yew, to cheat and destroy your neighbour through unjust means is no longer looked upon negatively since that is exactly how their leader lives. In Singapore, it is not men of courage, purpose in life and principle who succeed, it is those who grovel and sing praises to Lee Kuan Yew who manage that. A good lawyer is not someone who excels in the law, as there is no law, it is someone who puts away Alan Shadrake 6 weeks in jail in violation of his right of freedom of speech, to please Lee Kuan Yew who is.
In every walk of life, as the Constitution is destroyed, and the path to success is to be crafty and devious, the people have no faith in their institutions, they are left to drift in any direction, not knowing how to live or what men should aspire for.
And that is why, in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, suicides, mayhem and murder, cheating and dishonesty is the order of the day. I cannot for a moment believe that such a society is either worth living in or defending.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times online edition of Dec 15, 2010 has the story "Punishing for suicide bids". The story ran in the wake of a string of suicides, mounting in number, with a case yesterday being reported of a
Chinese national resident in Singapore (Singapore is almost a satellite Communist China city now), a woman who had almost miraculously survived a fall of 10 floors from her high rise apartment into it's swimming pool. The newspaper story was the government thinking aloud, as is the very purpose of the state controlled propaganda that is dished out daily, of whether these suicide attempts should be punished.
The fact is, as would be known by anyone following the Singapore propoganda that many bad practices, for want of a better phrase, are taking hold in the island. For one, there are suicides in the island everyday, the preferred method being jumping off the ubiquitous skyscrapers which has pigeon holes (tiny little apartments) in them where the Lee Kuan Yew's "digits" live (digit is the term Lee Kuan Yew once referred to his people), without parachutes. When they fall, there is the expected loud thud, the police come with the ambulance and the dead person is carted away within a few minutes and the blood hosed off with water. In the past people used to watch in horror but today it is so commonplace and since most Singaporeans have seen at least one suicide, they don't care anymore.
Also you recently have the rampant mayhem and murder in public by youths as young as 8. Since guns are unavailable in the island, to kill and maim, they bring along knives, swords and machetes. It is possible to see young teenagers in gangs walking along the streets brandishing the deadly weapons as if they were quietly going on a hunt. And then after they have killed or maimed their enemies, the bloody gory pictures of a boy dying in a pool of blood are shown in the propaganda sheets almost as s form of entertainment. The people who say Singapore is a safe place have to have their heads examined.
Lee Kuan Yew as we know has no religion. A reading of him tells us that he did not care too much for such things as principles, or care and compassion. To him, what mattered was to win over your competition, no matter how it is done, which in his case was to abuse the legal system to destroy his opponents, control the press and deny press freedom and to defame or jail anyone that questions his authority. And as the saying goes, Singaporeans over whom he rules as the supreme ruler naturally think that is the way to live. Like Master like Servant.
And these killings, suicides and the unprecedented number of criminals who cheat and defraud has to be a reflection of what Lee Kuan Yew himself believes.
Singaporeans today are by far an irreligious people. If they had a religion, it has to be money, just as Lee Kuan Yew believes. And because Singaporeans have no constitution or a set of rights, they are like a people without a direction or a foundation. Just like Lee Kuan Yew, to cheat and destroy your neighbour through unjust means is no longer looked upon negatively since that is exactly how their leader lives. In Singapore, it is not men of courage, purpose in life and principle who succeed, it is those who grovel and sing praises to Lee Kuan Yew who manage that. A good lawyer is not someone who excels in the law, as there is no law, it is someone who puts away Alan Shadrake 6 weeks in jail in violation of his right of freedom of speech, to please Lee Kuan Yew who is.
In every walk of life, as the Constitution is destroyed, and the path to success is to be crafty and devious, the people have no faith in their institutions, they are left to drift in any direction, not knowing how to live or what men should aspire for.
And that is why, in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, suicides, mayhem and murder, cheating and dishonesty is the order of the day. I cannot for a moment believe that such a society is either worth living in or defending.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Singapore's democracy an endangered species
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean once had the Dodo bird, which the islanders hunted into extinction. Today that extinct bird is the island's national symbol.
Singapore's original inhabitants were the Malays, while the British colonists brought into the island huge numbers of Chinese and Indians workers. The Malays who should have protested this overrunning of their island instead did nothing to complain. Today the Malays are not quite the Dodo birds of Mauritius but they are almost extinct, marginalized, discriminated and neglected. Today, there are no more than 13% of them in the island who primarily work as office boys and coolies for the Chinese who have become their masters, a tragic irony in the island which had initially belonged to them. Not too distant in the future, the fate of the Dodo bird may well befall them too. And perhaps, after they are extinct, they too, like the Mauritian bird, can be made the symbol of Singapore.
And it is the same with democracy, the most important asset that Singaporeans should cherish and protect. But over the years with the Lee Kuan Yew regime, we see the gradual erosion of democracy in the island, which is the right of the people enshrined in the Constitution.
But today, as the government takes away the right to free speech, the right to free press, the right to assembly and the right to peaceful protest, no one complains, while the country slowly descends into an utter police state. The Singapore Democratic Party, the only organization with any credibility for standing up for freedom does nothing substantial, except to write never ending articles in their newspaper the Singapore Democrats which Lee Kuan Yew promptly ignores. They have a lot of valuable information in their website and periodically hold rallies and make speeches at Hong Lim Park, the one place which Lee Kuan Yew permits for public speaking, rallies which are invariably attended to by a handful of the usual suspects.
And this regular boring round of activities goes on ad nasuem. The website articles, the speeches and rallies at Hong Lim Park and nothing more. The government on their part, does whatever they want towards further tightening the laws against their people, and publish their actions in their state controlled press. The Singapore Democratic Party similarly regularly condemns these transgressions over their rights, which Lee Kuaan Ye promptly ignores.
And then we hear of a handful of young men and women from the Singapore Democratic Party sent overseas for democracy training exercises in collaboration from those of other countries. And then these young men, having been wiser by their experience, make even more speeches which the public promptly ignores.
And then we are back to square one again.
At least I have something to say about Dr. Chee's Singapore Democratic Party. As for the others, they are simply dead, who will come alive just before the elections and immediately thereafter become dead again.
I am sure the reader will see the frustration in my writing. I am sure you are aware of the following, which is, the SDP is also completely aware of the disadvantage of doing nothing to challenge the dictatorship; they are aware that merely making speeches and holding rallies at Hong Lim Park is not going to do it, and they are aware that some other drastic action has to be taken to make the change.
One thing I know is that there are a number of people in Singapore who want change. And change does not need millions of people to bring it about, all it takes is a handful to break these unjust laws and openly protest inviting arrest. The arrests will publicize the cause and the others who are equally yearning for change will follow. And when the few more join hands, then the multitude will also follow.
We have to provoke Lee Kuan Yew's government to retaliate and use violence on us, and when we are arrested, more will follow and then there will be the unstoppable flood. And then there has to be change. This has to be done from within Singapore not outside. And when the violence and repression becomes known to the world, others around the world can join in to eventually topple this regime.
At this moment all I can do is to write and keep this blog alive and a thorn on Lee Kuan Yew's side. I want to see change in the island and it pains me to see nothing happening. Speeches and more speeches is not going to do the trick. Provoking the Singapore government into violence will.
As for the elections, don't hold your breath. Lee Kuan Yew and friends will win again, by hook or by crook.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
The island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean once had the Dodo bird, which the islanders hunted into extinction. Today that extinct bird is the island's national symbol.
Singapore's original inhabitants were the Malays, while the British colonists brought into the island huge numbers of Chinese and Indians workers. The Malays who should have protested this overrunning of their island instead did nothing to complain. Today the Malays are not quite the Dodo birds of Mauritius but they are almost extinct, marginalized, discriminated and neglected. Today, there are no more than 13% of them in the island who primarily work as office boys and coolies for the Chinese who have become their masters, a tragic irony in the island which had initially belonged to them. Not too distant in the future, the fate of the Dodo bird may well befall them too. And perhaps, after they are extinct, they too, like the Mauritian bird, can be made the symbol of Singapore.
And it is the same with democracy, the most important asset that Singaporeans should cherish and protect. But over the years with the Lee Kuan Yew regime, we see the gradual erosion of democracy in the island, which is the right of the people enshrined in the Constitution.
But today, as the government takes away the right to free speech, the right to free press, the right to assembly and the right to peaceful protest, no one complains, while the country slowly descends into an utter police state. The Singapore Democratic Party, the only organization with any credibility for standing up for freedom does nothing substantial, except to write never ending articles in their newspaper the Singapore Democrats which Lee Kuan Yew promptly ignores. They have a lot of valuable information in their website and periodically hold rallies and make speeches at Hong Lim Park, the one place which Lee Kuan Yew permits for public speaking, rallies which are invariably attended to by a handful of the usual suspects.
And this regular boring round of activities goes on ad nasuem. The website articles, the speeches and rallies at Hong Lim Park and nothing more. The government on their part, does whatever they want towards further tightening the laws against their people, and publish their actions in their state controlled press. The Singapore Democratic Party similarly regularly condemns these transgressions over their rights, which Lee Kuaan Ye promptly ignores.
And then we hear of a handful of young men and women from the Singapore Democratic Party sent overseas for democracy training exercises in collaboration from those of other countries. And then these young men, having been wiser by their experience, make even more speeches which the public promptly ignores.
And then we are back to square one again.
At least I have something to say about Dr. Chee's Singapore Democratic Party. As for the others, they are simply dead, who will come alive just before the elections and immediately thereafter become dead again.
I am sure the reader will see the frustration in my writing. I am sure you are aware of the following, which is, the SDP is also completely aware of the disadvantage of doing nothing to challenge the dictatorship; they are aware that merely making speeches and holding rallies at Hong Lim Park is not going to do it, and they are aware that some other drastic action has to be taken to make the change.
One thing I know is that there are a number of people in Singapore who want change. And change does not need millions of people to bring it about, all it takes is a handful to break these unjust laws and openly protest inviting arrest. The arrests will publicize the cause and the others who are equally yearning for change will follow. And when the few more join hands, then the multitude will also follow.
We have to provoke Lee Kuan Yew's government to retaliate and use violence on us, and when we are arrested, more will follow and then there will be the unstoppable flood. And then there has to be change. This has to be done from within Singapore not outside. And when the violence and repression becomes known to the world, others around the world can join in to eventually topple this regime.
At this moment all I can do is to write and keep this blog alive and a thorn on Lee Kuan Yew's side. I want to see change in the island and it pains me to see nothing happening. Speeches and more speeches is not going to do the trick. Provoking the Singapore government into violence will.
As for the elections, don't hold your breath. Lee Kuan Yew and friends will win again, by hook or by crook.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Friday, December 10, 2010
Singapore. A call worldwide for protestors
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The cry of freedom and liberty is no longer confined within a country's borders, it is international. The injustice done to the Palestine is as much a concern of the Palestinians as they are for an Englishman, a German an Australian or anyone else anywhere in the world, as we see instances of Americans protesting on the streets of Tel Aviv or Haifa for their cause or in Istanbul defending the cause of the Kurds.
And that is why I ask those around the world to lend a hand to those oppressed in Singapore through the denial of their fundamental human rights. Singapore is well known for it's almost non existence of human rights; no freedom of speech, expression or assembly and where the entire media is owned and controlled by the government's "propaganda department".
We also know that the people of Singapore are incapable of speaking up against this injustice fearing a legendary swift and punishing retaliation, resulting in the dissident suffering persecution their entire lives.
Only 2 days ago, we read of an recently formed organization's application to the government for a permit to walk from Hong Lim Park to Parliament House on World Democracy Day, a distance no more than 1 kilometer, turned down with a totally lame excuse that it may cause public disorder. As for the organization whose rights have been so blatantly denied, other than to file an appeal, which they know will be denied again, they have no plans for any other action.
This is the sort of fear under which Singaporeans live today. The government can simply deny any right you may have, and you are powerless to do anything about it.
And that is why, I call upon freedom loving people all over the world to lend a hand to the Singaporeans who are afraid to resist. Australians Englishmen or anyone else should enter Singapore to conduct public protests and civil disobedience. If arrested our foreign friends are unlikely to face any serious punishment other than a swift drive to the airport and deportation. If they did prosecute, it would turn out to be another instance of very bad publicity for the dictatorial regime. Either way, such public protests is plus for the universal cause of freedom by the free people of the world.
If human rights organizations and groups around the world are reading this, please come to Singapore in groups, or even singly, to publicly protest the lack of basic human rights. I am sure the oppressed in Singapore would appreciate what you do for them which they themselves are incapable of doing, while it may turn out to be the catalyst that emboldens Singaporeans to do the same.
Though your help, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel for these Singaporeans who struggle under the yoke of this authoritarian government.
So for those from the free world reading this, combine your next visit to Singapore into an action for civil disobedience against the human rights violations there. If you did this, and it became more frequent, the government would be forced to rethink their hard line stance over their people.
Today this regime simply bull dozes their way over their citizens, knowing they are too weak to resist. It only takes a few concerned foreigners to put them in their place.
And a big thank you to the readers around the world and hope you would would ponder a thought about this plan, which I believe is an important tool in the quest for democracy in Singapore.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
The cry of freedom and liberty is no longer confined within a country's borders, it is international. The injustice done to the Palestine is as much a concern of the Palestinians as they are for an Englishman, a German an Australian or anyone else anywhere in the world, as we see instances of Americans protesting on the streets of Tel Aviv or Haifa for their cause or in Istanbul defending the cause of the Kurds.
And that is why I ask those around the world to lend a hand to those oppressed in Singapore through the denial of their fundamental human rights. Singapore is well known for it's almost non existence of human rights; no freedom of speech, expression or assembly and where the entire media is owned and controlled by the government's "propaganda department".
We also know that the people of Singapore are incapable of speaking up against this injustice fearing a legendary swift and punishing retaliation, resulting in the dissident suffering persecution their entire lives.
Only 2 days ago, we read of an recently formed organization's application to the government for a permit to walk from Hong Lim Park to Parliament House on World Democracy Day, a distance no more than 1 kilometer, turned down with a totally lame excuse that it may cause public disorder. As for the organization whose rights have been so blatantly denied, other than to file an appeal, which they know will be denied again, they have no plans for any other action.
This is the sort of fear under which Singaporeans live today. The government can simply deny any right you may have, and you are powerless to do anything about it.
And that is why, I call upon freedom loving people all over the world to lend a hand to the Singaporeans who are afraid to resist. Australians Englishmen or anyone else should enter Singapore to conduct public protests and civil disobedience. If arrested our foreign friends are unlikely to face any serious punishment other than a swift drive to the airport and deportation. If they did prosecute, it would turn out to be another instance of very bad publicity for the dictatorial regime. Either way, such public protests is plus for the universal cause of freedom by the free people of the world.
If human rights organizations and groups around the world are reading this, please come to Singapore in groups, or even singly, to publicly protest the lack of basic human rights. I am sure the oppressed in Singapore would appreciate what you do for them which they themselves are incapable of doing, while it may turn out to be the catalyst that emboldens Singaporeans to do the same.
Though your help, there will be a light at the end of the tunnel for these Singaporeans who struggle under the yoke of this authoritarian government.
So for those from the free world reading this, combine your next visit to Singapore into an action for civil disobedience against the human rights violations there. If you did this, and it became more frequent, the government would be forced to rethink their hard line stance over their people.
Today this regime simply bull dozes their way over their citizens, knowing they are too weak to resist. It only takes a few concerned foreigners to put them in their place.
And a big thank you to the readers around the world and hope you would would ponder a thought about this plan, which I believe is an important tool in the quest for democracy in Singapore.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Singapore's opposition should buy that lottery ticket
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Let me start by telling you a joke which explains what I am about to say.
A Jew prayed everyday without fail at the Wailing Wall for years, asking God to help him win the Lottery. An Angel felt sorry for him, and asked God if he could help him. God's reply was that he was well aware of this man, and would have loved to help him, if only he would buy a Lottery ticket!
And this is exactly the situation the opposition is in Singapore.
Here you have a situation where the PAP rigs the elections, controls the press, uses the judiciary to punish dissidents, discriminates against you if you are not a supporter, denies you the right to speech or protest and in every other way prevents you from ever winning the elections. It should have been clear to them by now that contesting the elections is not going to achieve anything. It can be a corollary to other actions, but doing it alone is not going to get you anywhere.
And as was the case with the Jew and the Lottery ticket, surely the Singapore opposition should by now realise that they have to buy that ticket, which is, they have to do something. They have to break the law unjustly imposed by the dictatorship and go out and peacefully protest the injustices. This would of course be breaking the law, but in Singapore this has to be done. Now, sad to say, they are in the same position as the Jew who simply refuses to buy that Lottery ticket.
So to Singapore's opposition I say this, buy that Lottery ticket. Break the law. Conduct peaceful protests, speeches, parades and walks all over Singapore, not just in Hock Lim Park but throughout the island.
Otherwise like that Jew, you would be praying for a change of government all your lives, but it simply will not happen.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Let me start by telling you a joke which explains what I am about to say.
A Jew prayed everyday without fail at the Wailing Wall for years, asking God to help him win the Lottery. An Angel felt sorry for him, and asked God if he could help him. God's reply was that he was well aware of this man, and would have loved to help him, if only he would buy a Lottery ticket!
And this is exactly the situation the opposition is in Singapore.
Here you have a situation where the PAP rigs the elections, controls the press, uses the judiciary to punish dissidents, discriminates against you if you are not a supporter, denies you the right to speech or protest and in every other way prevents you from ever winning the elections. It should have been clear to them by now that contesting the elections is not going to achieve anything. It can be a corollary to other actions, but doing it alone is not going to get you anywhere.
And as was the case with the Jew and the Lottery ticket, surely the Singapore opposition should by now realise that they have to buy that ticket, which is, they have to do something. They have to break the law unjustly imposed by the dictatorship and go out and peacefully protest the injustices. This would of course be breaking the law, but in Singapore this has to be done. Now, sad to say, they are in the same position as the Jew who simply refuses to buy that Lottery ticket.
So to Singapore's opposition I say this, buy that Lottery ticket. Break the law. Conduct peaceful protests, speeches, parades and walks all over Singapore, not just in Hock Lim Park but throughout the island.
Otherwise like that Jew, you would be praying for a change of government all your lives, but it simply will not happen.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Singapore's Loh Sze On Quentin's office unattended!
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I just called Loh Sze On Quentin's, Lee Kuan Yew's judge's office today at Tel 63321270, the number which appears on the government website which has Arneda Jasman, presumably a Malay woman, as his secretary. She was not here. The response message mysteriously said that I had reached another number Tel 91850955. A woman when I called this number said, Arneda is on leave and this is her cell phone and that she was secretary to someone else. When I asked whom ,the call was disconnected.
You might want to try these numbers and have some fun. It seems to me that with so many people up in arms about his judgement in the Alan Shadrake case, both he and his secretary have decided to disappear!
Gopalan Nair
Fremont, CA
I just called Loh Sze On Quentin's, Lee Kuan Yew's judge's office today at Tel 63321270, the number which appears on the government website which has Arneda Jasman, presumably a Malay woman, as his secretary. She was not here. The response message mysteriously said that I had reached another number Tel 91850955. A woman when I called this number said, Arneda is on leave and this is her cell phone and that she was secretary to someone else. When I asked whom ,the call was disconnected.
You might want to try these numbers and have some fun. It seems to me that with so many people up in arms about his judgement in the Alan Shadrake case, both he and his secretary have decided to disappear!
Gopalan Nair
Fremont, CA
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew treating us as fools
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In my blog "Singapore says Social network working" Dec 03, 2010, I had pointed out how false Lee Kuan Yew's son, whom he appointed Prime Minister was when he said, in his state controlled paper, Straits Times, that the Singapore's disadvantaged are being taken care of, when in fact there is no social welfare to speak of, with many having to live in terrible poverty.
Even though every other Singaporean knows this is a lie, but because he controls all the newspapers, there is nothing that anyone can do to rebut it.
Another example of this appears in Singapore Democratic Party's website, of Dec 06, 2010, headed "Stage protests in ballrooms, really". In it, Dr. Chee Soon Juan writes about what transpired in the high Court, at his appeal hearing for his conviction for peaceful protest. Even though Article 14 of the Constitution, specifically guarantees freedom of assembly, the Singapore government deputy public prosecutor, Nor Ashikin Samdin, a local Singapore Malay woman, in her astonishing argument says, Dr. Chee should have had his protest in a private ballroom!
This unbelievable statement from Singapore's so called deputy public prosecutor raises some very disturbing issues. For one, it appears she does not understand the Constitution, perhaps never heard of it. Second she probably does not know any constitutional law, the backbone for a provision that guarantees free speech and assembly.
Singapore has had a limited form of self government in 1959 and independence in 1965 based on a Constitution that guarantees democracy, which is the basis for such fundamental rights as free speech and expression. From what this woman appears to say, she appears to think Singapore is none other than a dictatorship under Lee Kuan Yew and since he does not like people publicly criticizing him, they should all do it in private ballrooms!
And this is what happens under a dictatorial regime, like Singapore. People reach a point where they simply find living under a system where you are forced to listen to rubbish or propaganda daily, where the Media is completely controlled, simply intolerable. This sort of a system insults the people's intelligence, making the able and capable simply leave the country for the West.
What is left in the island is simply incompetence and ignorance, such as this woman arguing in a court of law that Dr. Chee should go on and hold a public protest in a private ballroom, when we know that she would never have uttered such nonsense had she known even the basics of constitutional law, politics or history.
We know that for decades Singapore's legal profession has been shrinking not expanding, even though the population has burgeoned to 5 million. It has today no more than, believe it or not, 3,000 lawyers a number completely inadequate. So what the government does to carry on, is to give jobs to women such as Nor Ashikin Samdin, who has no law at all in her head to pretend to act as Deputy Public Prosecutors.
I always have believed, as I do now, that surely this situation is untenable and cannot last. We have heard K Shanmugam, Lee Kuan Yew's Minister for Law claiming to increase the number of lawyers in Singapore but up till now, there has been nothing. Of course, he can say anything he wants in their state controlled papers since no one would be permitted a rebuttal, but the fact that he has to know is this; Singapore has a bad name as a place that uses the law to silence dissent. With a bad reputation like that, you will not only fail in getting locals to enter the profession, no foreigner with any qualifications would want to come.
Lee should realize that he is not only weakening himself and his government by this refusal to allow democracy in his island. If you had a free press in Singapore today, not just I but thousands of people would be pointing out the stupidity and incompetence of this woman, but today, except for a handful of people, no one can or dare criticize this woman and expose the pathetic state of the Singapore legal system.
The State Controlled Media will not publish any rebuttals, leaving the handful of critics who dare to criticize, no other option but to use the Internet. But even so, in Singapore even to do that entails great danger.
But the good news is this. If Lee Kuan Yew has to use women such as this to prosecute their cases, they have hit rock bottom in legal recruitment and the dearth of legal talent itself will bring them down. And second, I am sure, with increasing Internet use, while the government continues to use an iron grip to criminalize free speech or an independent press, there will come a breaking point very soon. It has to be. We will see 10 or more people breaking these unjust laws and protesting on the streets, which will open the floodgates. And we will see the fall of the dictatorship.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
In my blog "Singapore says Social network working" Dec 03, 2010, I had pointed out how false Lee Kuan Yew's son, whom he appointed Prime Minister was when he said, in his state controlled paper, Straits Times, that the Singapore's disadvantaged are being taken care of, when in fact there is no social welfare to speak of, with many having to live in terrible poverty.
Even though every other Singaporean knows this is a lie, but because he controls all the newspapers, there is nothing that anyone can do to rebut it.
Another example of this appears in Singapore Democratic Party's website, of Dec 06, 2010, headed "Stage protests in ballrooms, really". In it, Dr. Chee Soon Juan writes about what transpired in the high Court, at his appeal hearing for his conviction for peaceful protest. Even though Article 14 of the Constitution, specifically guarantees freedom of assembly, the Singapore government deputy public prosecutor, Nor Ashikin Samdin, a local Singapore Malay woman, in her astonishing argument says, Dr. Chee should have had his protest in a private ballroom!
This unbelievable statement from Singapore's so called deputy public prosecutor raises some very disturbing issues. For one, it appears she does not understand the Constitution, perhaps never heard of it. Second she probably does not know any constitutional law, the backbone for a provision that guarantees free speech and assembly.
Singapore has had a limited form of self government in 1959 and independence in 1965 based on a Constitution that guarantees democracy, which is the basis for such fundamental rights as free speech and expression. From what this woman appears to say, she appears to think Singapore is none other than a dictatorship under Lee Kuan Yew and since he does not like people publicly criticizing him, they should all do it in private ballrooms!
And this is what happens under a dictatorial regime, like Singapore. People reach a point where they simply find living under a system where you are forced to listen to rubbish or propaganda daily, where the Media is completely controlled, simply intolerable. This sort of a system insults the people's intelligence, making the able and capable simply leave the country for the West.
What is left in the island is simply incompetence and ignorance, such as this woman arguing in a court of law that Dr. Chee should go on and hold a public protest in a private ballroom, when we know that she would never have uttered such nonsense had she known even the basics of constitutional law, politics or history.
We know that for decades Singapore's legal profession has been shrinking not expanding, even though the population has burgeoned to 5 million. It has today no more than, believe it or not, 3,000 lawyers a number completely inadequate. So what the government does to carry on, is to give jobs to women such as Nor Ashikin Samdin, who has no law at all in her head to pretend to act as Deputy Public Prosecutors.
I always have believed, as I do now, that surely this situation is untenable and cannot last. We have heard K Shanmugam, Lee Kuan Yew's Minister for Law claiming to increase the number of lawyers in Singapore but up till now, there has been nothing. Of course, he can say anything he wants in their state controlled papers since no one would be permitted a rebuttal, but the fact that he has to know is this; Singapore has a bad name as a place that uses the law to silence dissent. With a bad reputation like that, you will not only fail in getting locals to enter the profession, no foreigner with any qualifications would want to come.
Lee should realize that he is not only weakening himself and his government by this refusal to allow democracy in his island. If you had a free press in Singapore today, not just I but thousands of people would be pointing out the stupidity and incompetence of this woman, but today, except for a handful of people, no one can or dare criticize this woman and expose the pathetic state of the Singapore legal system.
The State Controlled Media will not publish any rebuttals, leaving the handful of critics who dare to criticize, no other option but to use the Internet. But even so, in Singapore even to do that entails great danger.
But the good news is this. If Lee Kuan Yew has to use women such as this to prosecute their cases, they have hit rock bottom in legal recruitment and the dearth of legal talent itself will bring them down. And second, I am sure, with increasing Internet use, while the government continues to use an iron grip to criminalize free speech or an independent press, there will come a breaking point very soon. It has to be. We will see 10 or more people breaking these unjust laws and protesting on the streets, which will open the floodgates. And we will see the fall of the dictatorship.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore Judge Loh Sze On Quentin, a pariah among the world's legal fraternity
Ladies and Gentlemen,
If there is one man, who completely turned himself and his reputation (if he ever had one) into an instant worldwide disgrace, it has to Singapore Judge Loh Sze On Quentin who jailed the English author Alan Shadrake, last month, for writing a book critical of Singapore's legal system and it's judiciary.
Today more and more countries are realizing that democracy is the answer for success, not fascism or dictatorship, and democracy's principle tool is freedom of speech. The right to criticize one's leaders, one's legal system and one's judges is one of the most important rights that people have, and a right which the courts themselves around the world uphold.
Alan Shadrake's Book "Once a Jolly Hangman" did not contain obscenities or intemperate language against judges, it merely pointed out that Singapore's legal system is biased against the poor, the disadvantaged and the politically unconnected, a book which would be protected in any other legal system in the world, except North Korea, Burma or in this case Singapore.
Loh Sze On Quentin, this local Chinese Singaporean judge with an English name, is not fooling himself or anyone by his judgement, a judgement which is itself based on lies and half truths and sometimes complete falsities. The judgement he claims is based on English Common Law of Contempt of court which is part of the law of Singapore; yet he does not say that in England itself no one has been convicted of a case like this for nearly a century!
The truth is Loh Sze On Quentin, is under orders from his master Lee Kuan Yew who runs Singapore and everything in it, who is unfortunately finding it increasingly difficult to govern with an increasingly questioning electorate. Therefore the only thing he can think of is to continue the old Chinese trick of killing a monkey to frighten the Singaporean chickens.
This judge has now suddenly become internationally notorious as that shameless spineless opportunist who is in truth a fascist politician, who has just sent an English writer to jail, because he offended Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. With a label like that, I don't think he is going get any international awards for jurisprudence any time soon!
Had I been him, I would be seriously regretting not only my legal decision but also my decision to accept a judgeship when Lee Kuan Yew the strongman upon whom everything depends in that island, is just about to die, being 88. He would have been much better off remaining as that small time lawyer which he was, in his former firm Cooma Low and Loh, licking Lee Kuan Yew's boots. Let this be a lesson to everyone not to succumb to greed and avarice, as it always turns out bad.
PS I have just sent this post to Loh Sze On Quentin's court. I don't think he is in a position to do anything about it. This is an example of a frog who thinks he is king in his well.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
If there is one man, who completely turned himself and his reputation (if he ever had one) into an instant worldwide disgrace, it has to Singapore Judge Loh Sze On Quentin who jailed the English author Alan Shadrake, last month, for writing a book critical of Singapore's legal system and it's judiciary.
Today more and more countries are realizing that democracy is the answer for success, not fascism or dictatorship, and democracy's principle tool is freedom of speech. The right to criticize one's leaders, one's legal system and one's judges is one of the most important rights that people have, and a right which the courts themselves around the world uphold.
Alan Shadrake's Book "Once a Jolly Hangman" did not contain obscenities or intemperate language against judges, it merely pointed out that Singapore's legal system is biased against the poor, the disadvantaged and the politically unconnected, a book which would be protected in any other legal system in the world, except North Korea, Burma or in this case Singapore.
Loh Sze On Quentin, this local Chinese Singaporean judge with an English name, is not fooling himself or anyone by his judgement, a judgement which is itself based on lies and half truths and sometimes complete falsities. The judgement he claims is based on English Common Law of Contempt of court which is part of the law of Singapore; yet he does not say that in England itself no one has been convicted of a case like this for nearly a century!
The truth is Loh Sze On Quentin, is under orders from his master Lee Kuan Yew who runs Singapore and everything in it, who is unfortunately finding it increasingly difficult to govern with an increasingly questioning electorate. Therefore the only thing he can think of is to continue the old Chinese trick of killing a monkey to frighten the Singaporean chickens.
This judge has now suddenly become internationally notorious as that shameless spineless opportunist who is in truth a fascist politician, who has just sent an English writer to jail, because he offended Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew. With a label like that, I don't think he is going get any international awards for jurisprudence any time soon!
Had I been him, I would be seriously regretting not only my legal decision but also my decision to accept a judgeship when Lee Kuan Yew the strongman upon whom everything depends in that island, is just about to die, being 88. He would have been much better off remaining as that small time lawyer which he was, in his former firm Cooma Low and Loh, licking Lee Kuan Yew's boots. Let this be a lesson to everyone not to succumb to greed and avarice, as it always turns out bad.
PS I have just sent this post to Loh Sze On Quentin's court. I don't think he is in a position to do anything about it. This is an example of a frog who thinks he is king in his well.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Friday, December 3, 2010
Singapore says, Social Safety Net "Working"
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state owned and controlled newspaper the Straits Times Online edition of Dec 2, 2010 has this story "Social safety net "working"". The Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew's son, whom he appointed Prime Minister, has ordered his paper, to say that the poor are not neglected by his government, a statement which has not an iota of truth in it. Of course in a country where he controls every single newspaper, he can say anything he wants and not be any worse for it.
He says "Singapore's social safety net is working well" and "the Government will keep finding ways to improve it".
The fact is, if you knew Singapore like I do, it completely neglects it's poor, and the justification they use is to say, we are a "meritocratic society", which again is a completely false statement. Lee Kuan Yew cronies being given top jobs and anyone else asked to fend for themselves, is not meritocracy. There is another word for it. It is nepotism.
The truth is this. If you are lucky to have had an education and the willingness to shut your mind to any thing political, or the willingness to crawl, you would be able to make some sort of a living. On the other hand, if you were incapable of studying or you were stupid enough to go against the Big Man, you are in very serious trouble. You would probably be unemployed and without any help from friends and relatives, would just about starve. To live, you would have to completely demean yourself for any help, almost begging for a handout from the government, which in turn destroys your self respect, which in turn destroys your spirit, which in turn destroys you.
The whole basis of Singapore's approach to social welfare is wrong. It is based on a distrust of their own people, on a false justification that if ever you showed the slightest of generosity to the disadvantaged, you will immediately open the flood gates of a crutch mentality and every one would become lazy and Singapore as we know would collapse tomorrow.
So with this false premise in mind, the government, although well able to afford it, go out of their way to demand their poor to almost be dying before they are even given a crumb. The entire process of it is not only demeaning, it is dehumanizing.
Instead of the government working out a minimum amount of income necessary for a citizen based on family size, which is realistic, rather than expecting someone to live on bread and water; giving them a means test and paying out what is due with respect and dignity, Singapore has a system which in effect requires the poor to literally beg.
Although there is some sort of calculation to decide what one gets, it is actually way way below what is needed to survive as an ordinary human being. We hear many stories in blogs and the Internet of families living in the dark because they are unable to afford electricity, of people having to sit on the floor because they cannot afford furniture, of people having to live on one meal a day, and just drinking coffee and bread for supper.
And when this sort of life becomes unbearable, they can try, with no guarantee, to get some more help, but this requires standing in line outside their Lee Kuan Yew Minister or Member of Parliament's office for many hours, and begging for some more help, which usually turns out to be no more than a bag of rice, some cooking oil and soya sauce.
My question to Lee Kuan Yew and his son is this, why do you have to make your citizens crawl so low and even so they don't even receive the basics? Why can't you trust your people, care for them, and treat them well? Why do you have this obsession of thinking that the moment you are nice, your people would turn on you? And since you yourself take a salary of several millions a year, which turns out to be 6 times what President Obama gets and what the incomes of all the European ministers combined, which you know is theft or corruption, why can't you give a little for your fellow Singaporeans?
Lee Kuan Yew's son should know that generous social welfare, instead of creating a crutch mentality, in fact has the completely opposite effect. In Europe today, Germany has one of the best social welfare schemes. It has also almost free education, where almost everyone not only has gone to school, almost everyone has tertiary education; a large proportion of them with PhDs. Despite the free or subsidised universal education and a comfortable social welfare net, Germany continues to be most successful economy in Europe and it's largest exporter, with Germans enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Europe. And the reason for this, which Lee Kuan Yew's son does not understand, is the realization by the government that Germans care for their government and a realization by the people that their government cares for them.
Today in Singapore, many look upon me with envy, because I have managed to move to the United States. In fact, a survey not too long ago revealed that 3 out of 4 young people surveyed had said, if given a chance they would emigrate to the West.
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew should realize that a little caring for the disadvantaged, at least to a level necessary for normal life, has benefits which far outweigh anything undesirable. For one, their children have better lives and education, which results in better skilled future citizens. They appreciate what their country does for them and in turn reciprocate by doing what they can for their country. With their appreciation, Singapore no longer becomes a bad dream, and instead something they can be proud about. And as for the children who become the future adults in Singapore, they would probably do better than their parents who did not have it so good. Caring for your people can only be a win win situation, which Lee Kuna Yew nor his son do not appear to understand.
And as for the argument that Singapore would no longer be competitive if there is a decent social welfare in place, this argument has been disproved throughout the world. Everywhere you look, a decent welfare system in fact makes the country more competitive, not less. And this is because, the human spirit is such that it would find ways to re invent the wheel, to find alternative policies and ways to make a living and improve, but it can only do so, if there is mutual trust and respect, by the government for the people and the people for the government.
Singaporeans today hate their government and their government in turn is afraid of them. This accounts for the fact that emigration rates continue to mount, Singaporeans do not reproduce themselves and no one is getting married.
And one of the major problems the government has today is getting skilled English speaking workers. It is almost impossible to find any.
In this atmosphere of mutual distrust in Singapore, productivity can only fall, not improve, as shown by Singapore's falling productivity levels. And this proves the very point that I am trying to make, which is, a caring society has it's benefits.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
Singapore's state owned and controlled newspaper the Straits Times Online edition of Dec 2, 2010 has this story "Social safety net "working"". The Singapore strongman Lee Kuan Yew's son, whom he appointed Prime Minister, has ordered his paper, to say that the poor are not neglected by his government, a statement which has not an iota of truth in it. Of course in a country where he controls every single newspaper, he can say anything he wants and not be any worse for it.
He says "Singapore's social safety net is working well" and "the Government will keep finding ways to improve it".
The fact is, if you knew Singapore like I do, it completely neglects it's poor, and the justification they use is to say, we are a "meritocratic society", which again is a completely false statement. Lee Kuan Yew cronies being given top jobs and anyone else asked to fend for themselves, is not meritocracy. There is another word for it. It is nepotism.
The truth is this. If you are lucky to have had an education and the willingness to shut your mind to any thing political, or the willingness to crawl, you would be able to make some sort of a living. On the other hand, if you were incapable of studying or you were stupid enough to go against the Big Man, you are in very serious trouble. You would probably be unemployed and without any help from friends and relatives, would just about starve. To live, you would have to completely demean yourself for any help, almost begging for a handout from the government, which in turn destroys your self respect, which in turn destroys your spirit, which in turn destroys you.
The whole basis of Singapore's approach to social welfare is wrong. It is based on a distrust of their own people, on a false justification that if ever you showed the slightest of generosity to the disadvantaged, you will immediately open the flood gates of a crutch mentality and every one would become lazy and Singapore as we know would collapse tomorrow.
So with this false premise in mind, the government, although well able to afford it, go out of their way to demand their poor to almost be dying before they are even given a crumb. The entire process of it is not only demeaning, it is dehumanizing.
Instead of the government working out a minimum amount of income necessary for a citizen based on family size, which is realistic, rather than expecting someone to live on bread and water; giving them a means test and paying out what is due with respect and dignity, Singapore has a system which in effect requires the poor to literally beg.
Although there is some sort of calculation to decide what one gets, it is actually way way below what is needed to survive as an ordinary human being. We hear many stories in blogs and the Internet of families living in the dark because they are unable to afford electricity, of people having to sit on the floor because they cannot afford furniture, of people having to live on one meal a day, and just drinking coffee and bread for supper.
And when this sort of life becomes unbearable, they can try, with no guarantee, to get some more help, but this requires standing in line outside their Lee Kuan Yew Minister or Member of Parliament's office for many hours, and begging for some more help, which usually turns out to be no more than a bag of rice, some cooking oil and soya sauce.
My question to Lee Kuan Yew and his son is this, why do you have to make your citizens crawl so low and even so they don't even receive the basics? Why can't you trust your people, care for them, and treat them well? Why do you have this obsession of thinking that the moment you are nice, your people would turn on you? And since you yourself take a salary of several millions a year, which turns out to be 6 times what President Obama gets and what the incomes of all the European ministers combined, which you know is theft or corruption, why can't you give a little for your fellow Singaporeans?
Lee Kuan Yew's son should know that generous social welfare, instead of creating a crutch mentality, in fact has the completely opposite effect. In Europe today, Germany has one of the best social welfare schemes. It has also almost free education, where almost everyone not only has gone to school, almost everyone has tertiary education; a large proportion of them with PhDs. Despite the free or subsidised universal education and a comfortable social welfare net, Germany continues to be most successful economy in Europe and it's largest exporter, with Germans enjoying one of the highest standards of living in Europe. And the reason for this, which Lee Kuan Yew's son does not understand, is the realization by the government that Germans care for their government and a realization by the people that their government cares for them.
Today in Singapore, many look upon me with envy, because I have managed to move to the United States. In fact, a survey not too long ago revealed that 3 out of 4 young people surveyed had said, if given a chance they would emigrate to the West.
Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew should realize that a little caring for the disadvantaged, at least to a level necessary for normal life, has benefits which far outweigh anything undesirable. For one, their children have better lives and education, which results in better skilled future citizens. They appreciate what their country does for them and in turn reciprocate by doing what they can for their country. With their appreciation, Singapore no longer becomes a bad dream, and instead something they can be proud about. And as for the children who become the future adults in Singapore, they would probably do better than their parents who did not have it so good. Caring for your people can only be a win win situation, which Lee Kuna Yew nor his son do not appear to understand.
And as for the argument that Singapore would no longer be competitive if there is a decent social welfare in place, this argument has been disproved throughout the world. Everywhere you look, a decent welfare system in fact makes the country more competitive, not less. And this is because, the human spirit is such that it would find ways to re invent the wheel, to find alternative policies and ways to make a living and improve, but it can only do so, if there is mutual trust and respect, by the government for the people and the people for the government.
Singaporeans today hate their government and their government in turn is afraid of them. This accounts for the fact that emigration rates continue to mount, Singaporeans do not reproduce themselves and no one is getting married.
And one of the major problems the government has today is getting skilled English speaking workers. It is almost impossible to find any.
In this atmosphere of mutual distrust in Singapore, productivity can only fall, not improve, as shown by Singapore's falling productivity levels. And this proves the very point that I am trying to make, which is, a caring society has it's benefits.
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 government propaganda put out by this dictatorial regime.
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