Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Singapore in 1942, overnight there was no crime at all. A few heads were decapitated from their bodies and hung up on stakes throughout the island with signs stating why the were executed, for instance, this man stole a bar of soap. Naturally the people were terrified into obedience. The next day, Singapore became crime free.
Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy on crime and punishment is similar. Singapore some years ago was facing increasing numbers of visitors overstaying their visas. So the solution, simply cane them, or rather torture them. Through fear of torture, they may be discouraged from doing this.
Drugs are a problem in Singapore just as in any other country. So the solution, hang them or if not serious enough, cane them.
Some time ago, you have read about a disgruntled citizen who had punched one of Lee Kuan Yew's Members of Parliament. That same Member of Parliament was recently doused with kerosene and set alight. Suffering from serious burn injuries all over his body, that man is now in hospital being treated. I understand the man is completely disfigured and marred for life. The state controlled newspaper the Straits Times reports yesterday Feb 06, 2009 in the report "Threat on MP case" that another member of Lee Kuan Yew's parliament, Denise Phua had received a threat from a man Ng Kim Ngweng for which he was arrested and charged. The complaint of all these people were the same, that is, they were not given any monetary help being in dire straits. Going by Lee Kuan Yew's philosophy on how to tackle crime, you can expect long prison sentences for these men after being tortured by caning. I guess if the long prison sentences coupled with the torture does not arrest the escalating number of such instances, the next step perhaps may be first torture them by caning, then imprison them and then hang them. Perhaps that might finally work!
You can appreciate that this is a completely barbarous misguided thinking on administration of justice. The punishment must meet the crime. Just because you want to stop littering, you cannot just hang them! Caning visitors who overstay their visas is fundamentally wrong, as the punishment does not fit the crime. Lee Kuan Yew may be unhappy to see visitors who overstay their visit terms, but if this is a problem, he has to find some other way to deal with it. Torturing them with caning is in principle wrong. Vandalism may be a problem. Properties are defaced. But beating a man to pulp on his buttocks just because he painted a slogan on a wall is not the way to go. It is inhuman, unjust and barbarous.
But as it stands today, with Lee Kuan Yew controlling every aspect of life of the Singaporean, there is nothing you can do if you disagree. His word is law. His minions are above the law, minions being his corrupt judges such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, his corrupt police officers, all above the law and above accountability. They can do whatever they want, as long as Lee Kuan Yew desires it.
This is not a place to have families and bring up children. What happens to your child if in a moment of indiscretion, he painted a wall with his girlfriend's name. The law, administered by his minions, in a robotic fashion, will arrest your child, imprison and torture him. No parent would want that to happen to his child.
Although I am against any violence, the increasing numbers of attacks against Lee Kuan Yew's members of parliament is heartening, not because I relish the thought of Lee's minions being punched, doused with thinner and set ablaze or they were mortally threatened, but because it shows the Singaporean is finally resisting the oppression under which they live. Despite the great suffering they would endure at the hands of this crass and uncaring government, they still did what they did. It looks like the people have reached or are fast reaching their limit of tolerance. It looks like they are now determined to resist.
I hope the next step would be street protest, peaceful ones, that is. Not just at the designated Hong Lim Park but throughout the island. Yes, it is my hope that the Singaporean will finally to stand up for what he deserves, his rights.
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.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Singapore. Citizens being held without trial
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times has a report "New Detention Center" dated Feb 04, 2009. Mr. Wong Kan Seng, Singapore's fumbling Minister for Home Affairs under whose watch, Mas Salamat Kastari, a detainee limping with a broken leg, escaped in broad daylight from the Whitley Detention Center, now says he is going to build a new facility in Changi to detain the others who have not managed to do so! Not that I am saying Mas Salamat Kastari should not have escaped. He had every right to do it. He was after all detained for more than a year allegedly under suspicion of this or that, and nothing else. Mr. Wong Kan Seng should have either charged him if he had any evidence or shut his mouth and released him a long time ago. Since he didn't do it, Mas Salamat Kastari helped himself to freedom. And I say, good for him.
Any self respecting Minister with any shame would have done the right thing and resigned forthwith. Imagine, a man escaping in broad daylight, and what is worse, with a limp, from a top security detention center surrounded by supposedly crack Gurkha troops! Unthinkable. But you see, Singapore is not any other country. In Singapore, Ministers are not accountable to anyone. They do what they want, as they please. What else do you expect from a one party oligarchical dictatorship with Lee Kuan Yew strutting around like a prize rooster in the chicken compound!
But that is not my point. It is this. The detaining of these men and women without charge for indefinite periods is both morally and in every other way wrong. And you, citizens have to speak up against it.
The government claims that they are a threat to national security, they are terrorists, they are a danger to the country, blah blah blah. But yet, we are not told anything about them. We are not told what they did or what they were suspected of. The people know nothing about them except that this dictatorship which controls everything in the country, the law courts, the newspapers, the civil service, in fact everything, comes up with a blank statement that they, whoever they are, are a danger to society. And we are not even told their names, imagine that.
This is a very dangerous country, a very dangerous place to live in. Anyone, including the local Tan Ah Meng round the corner lives at the mercy of this government because Tan Ah Meng may disappear the next moment into the confines of the new detention facility to be kept there for the next 20 years or longer, and all we would know is that one more person has been detained under the Internal Security Act because this fumbling Minster has decided that he is a threat.
No one is safe in Singapore. Had I remained in Singapore and not left for America, perhaps I too would be counting the bars because Mr. Wong believes that I intended to blow up the whole of Singapore, not just Changi Airport!
Truly, the Internal Security Act has no place in Singapore, or any other country. It is a law that enables Lee Kuan Yew to keep behind bars indefinitely anyone that he does not like. There is no accountability. No due process. Just secrecy and the denial of a man's most important right, his liberty.
That is why living in Singapore for anyone who has shown any dissent to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew's rule has to live in fear, not knowing when the man, just for the fun of it may decide that so and so must lose his liberty.
Many of those being illegally detained under the pleasure of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew are Malay Muslims. It is their brothers whose liberty is so cruelly denied. Both the Malay Muslims and everyone in Singapore should demand of this failed Minister of Home Affairs that he should either charge them in court, even though it will be a Kangaroo trial, or let them go. And as for Mr. Wong Kan Seng, perhaps he should be locked in there for a while to have a taste of his own medicine.
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,
Singapore's state controlled newspaper the Straits Times has a report "New Detention Center" dated Feb 04, 2009. Mr. Wong Kan Seng, Singapore's fumbling Minister for Home Affairs under whose watch, Mas Salamat Kastari, a detainee limping with a broken leg, escaped in broad daylight from the Whitley Detention Center, now says he is going to build a new facility in Changi to detain the others who have not managed to do so! Not that I am saying Mas Salamat Kastari should not have escaped. He had every right to do it. He was after all detained for more than a year allegedly under suspicion of this or that, and nothing else. Mr. Wong Kan Seng should have either charged him if he had any evidence or shut his mouth and released him a long time ago. Since he didn't do it, Mas Salamat Kastari helped himself to freedom. And I say, good for him.
Any self respecting Minister with any shame would have done the right thing and resigned forthwith. Imagine, a man escaping in broad daylight, and what is worse, with a limp, from a top security detention center surrounded by supposedly crack Gurkha troops! Unthinkable. But you see, Singapore is not any other country. In Singapore, Ministers are not accountable to anyone. They do what they want, as they please. What else do you expect from a one party oligarchical dictatorship with Lee Kuan Yew strutting around like a prize rooster in the chicken compound!
But that is not my point. It is this. The detaining of these men and women without charge for indefinite periods is both morally and in every other way wrong. And you, citizens have to speak up against it.
The government claims that they are a threat to national security, they are terrorists, they are a danger to the country, blah blah blah. But yet, we are not told anything about them. We are not told what they did or what they were suspected of. The people know nothing about them except that this dictatorship which controls everything in the country, the law courts, the newspapers, the civil service, in fact everything, comes up with a blank statement that they, whoever they are, are a danger to society. And we are not even told their names, imagine that.
This is a very dangerous country, a very dangerous place to live in. Anyone, including the local Tan Ah Meng round the corner lives at the mercy of this government because Tan Ah Meng may disappear the next moment into the confines of the new detention facility to be kept there for the next 20 years or longer, and all we would know is that one more person has been detained under the Internal Security Act because this fumbling Minster has decided that he is a threat.
No one is safe in Singapore. Had I remained in Singapore and not left for America, perhaps I too would be counting the bars because Mr. Wong believes that I intended to blow up the whole of Singapore, not just Changi Airport!
Truly, the Internal Security Act has no place in Singapore, or any other country. It is a law that enables Lee Kuan Yew to keep behind bars indefinitely anyone that he does not like. There is no accountability. No due process. Just secrecy and the denial of a man's most important right, his liberty.
That is why living in Singapore for anyone who has shown any dissent to Mr. Lee Kuan Yew's rule has to live in fear, not knowing when the man, just for the fun of it may decide that so and so must lose his liberty.
Many of those being illegally detained under the pleasure of Mr. Lee Kuan Yew are Malay Muslims. It is their brothers whose liberty is so cruelly denied. Both the Malay Muslims and everyone in Singapore should demand of this failed Minister of Home Affairs that he should either charge them in court, even though it will be a Kangaroo trial, or let them go. And as for Mr. Wong Kan Seng, perhaps he should be locked in there for a while to have a taste of his own medicine.
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, February 2, 2009
Singapore. The law destroyed
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Any lawyer practicing in Singapore must perforce put his conscience somewhere else. How else, in all conscience, can he still practice without an irrepressible urge to throw up?
Lee Kuan Yew has since the very beginning systematically tailored the law to preserve his rule, not to preserve the rule of law, so much so that to call it law today would be insult to one's intelligence.
Let me give you an example of myself. In 1991, I was standing for elections in Bukit Merah constituency representing the Workers Party. I was speaking at an election rally. I said the Subordinate Court Judiciary being directly under the Legal Service Commission headed by the Attorney General which is part of the Executive, gives the impression that it may not be impartial, since there is a possibility of executive interference. A very legitimate thing to say. A better system, I said, would be to make it like the High Court where judges tenure is permanent subject only to Parliament.
A few days later I was charged with contempt of court, the accusation being that I had implied the Subordinate Court judiciary was biased. Truly, Lee Kuan Yew's intention to charge me in a case like this was not so much to punish me. The greater purpose was to silence me, seeing me as new threat to his plans. I was a practicing lawyer in Singapore and had joined the Workers Party. I must have appeared to Lee Kuan Yew as a new young troublesome meddler in his plan for absolute control. Therefore, as the often used expression goes, I had to be nipped in the bud. And the best way to do it is by twisting the law.
This is how he does it in court. His enforcer, the public prosecutor, argues that I had committed a grave contempt on the integrity of the Subordinate Court Judiciary. As authority, he cites various cases from commonwealth countries and England to support his stand. But none of those cases were even remotely similar to mine, let alone anyone in England or elsewhere being charged for contempt of court for something like this.
It was a long time ago, but I remember him citing one case from New Zealand, in which the defendant had gone to a court and thrown garbage and refuse into the courtroom, being upset about the decision of the judge that went against him. But the prosecutor conveniently fails to mention the facts. Instead he relies on passages that the judge made in the judgement such as "everyone should respect the court" or some such general statement. And the Judge Sinnathuray nods in agreement that what I did was showing disrespect. The prosecutor wins round one.
And this goes on. He refers to several other cases whose facts had not the slightest relevance whatsoever to mine. But in every one of those cases, even if the case referred to was one of murder, the prosecutor picks sentences from each of them which suits him, passages which are general in nature like "everyone should respect the law" and so on, as authority for the proposition that I committed contempt of court!
The late Mr. Jeyaretnam who was my counsel argues of course that these cases have no relevance at all to the facts in my case to which the judge has nothing to say.
In the end, the judge solemnly pronounces that since all these cases cited by the prosecutor clearly make it illegal for someone to show contempt to a court, therefore I had similarly shown contempt to the Subordinate Court Judiciary, the punishment being $8,000.00 fine or jail of 2 months.
What this case, Attorney General vs Gopalan Nair, has done is to set a precedent. English common law as in Singapore is based on precedent, or what is known in law as Stare Decisis. So by my case, Singapore law entrenches the rule that anyone who criticizes the court at an election rally shall be found guilty of contempt, regardless of whether or not the words were actually contemptuous. Since this is now the law of the land, the law has been debased and changed to suit Lee Kuan Yew's political agenda. His agenda being to stifle and silence dissent. Therefore in the future, anyone who had done what I did, can similarly be found in contempt of court by virtue of the case Attorney General vs Gopalan Nair. You see, by this means, the law is defiled and debased. It can no longer be considered sound law anywhere in the world, except in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
Take another example of Dr. Chee Soon Juan. He has been repeatedly convicted for making speeches and holding peaceful assemblies in public under laws that require permits. Anywhere else in the world, except perhaps in North Korea and Burma, such activity is not only permitted but also encouraged since it shows civic consciousness, a desired human quality in all democracies. But you see, in Singapore, such pubic speeches and peaceful assemblies, although in no way a threat to the country, and which is guaranteed by the constitution, are prosecuted. And in these prosecutions, the judge deliberately refuses even to look at the fact that the Constitution, the Supreme law of the land guarantees the people this right. Instead the judge only looks at another code section of the law, which by the way, is clearly contrary to the Constitution and therefore illegal, to convict him and send him to jail. Clearly a selective use of the law, is it not? Here again, you see, the law is twisted and stood on it's head to further Lee Kuan Yew's plan of total control.
And these cases go into the law books as authority for everyone thereafter to be punished for public speeches or public assembly, thanks to Dr. Chee's cases which have now set a precedent. Can anyone not see that through years of such abuse of the law, the law is being constantly re-written to become what it is today, a law to be laughed at, the laughing stock of lawyers all around the world.
And those responsible for permitting him to get away with completely destroying the law must answer for their actions. I am not only talking about the judges including ones such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who presided over the defamation case of Lee Kuan Yew vs Dr. Chee Soon Juan. I am also talking about the prosecutors such as Jeffrey Chan who argue these cases, Assistant Superintend of Police Abdul Razak bin Zakaria who arrests innocent citizens on orders of Lee Kuan Yew, I am talking about each and every person who willingly does bad things to hurt his fellow citizens because it furthers his career.
Such people have not only brought shame to themselves and their families, they are responsible for the progressive destruction of the law to become what it is today, just a tool to prop up the dictator Lee Kuan Yew. And what is worse, they have let down their own country, because everything depends on the rule of law. Without it, nothing can function. Nothing can last.
Any self respecting lawyer who knows this should find another occupation or better still leave the country and practice elsewhere. And no young man or woman should ever contemplate the practice of law in Singapore if they wish to keep their dignity intact.
Most young men and women who wish to become lawyers have a passion and the hope to fight for justice, to further the interests of their fellow men. This is why they study the law, hoping to be good lawyers some day, to work and live as upright honest men and women in a career which requires hard work, honesty and integrity. I thought so myself when I read law in England and returned to practice in Singapore. It took me not more than 5 years to realize what Singapore law really was. A set of rules constantly changed to suit Lee Kuan Yew's purpose.
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,
Any lawyer practicing in Singapore must perforce put his conscience somewhere else. How else, in all conscience, can he still practice without an irrepressible urge to throw up?
Lee Kuan Yew has since the very beginning systematically tailored the law to preserve his rule, not to preserve the rule of law, so much so that to call it law today would be insult to one's intelligence.
Let me give you an example of myself. In 1991, I was standing for elections in Bukit Merah constituency representing the Workers Party. I was speaking at an election rally. I said the Subordinate Court Judiciary being directly under the Legal Service Commission headed by the Attorney General which is part of the Executive, gives the impression that it may not be impartial, since there is a possibility of executive interference. A very legitimate thing to say. A better system, I said, would be to make it like the High Court where judges tenure is permanent subject only to Parliament.
A few days later I was charged with contempt of court, the accusation being that I had implied the Subordinate Court judiciary was biased. Truly, Lee Kuan Yew's intention to charge me in a case like this was not so much to punish me. The greater purpose was to silence me, seeing me as new threat to his plans. I was a practicing lawyer in Singapore and had joined the Workers Party. I must have appeared to Lee Kuan Yew as a new young troublesome meddler in his plan for absolute control. Therefore, as the often used expression goes, I had to be nipped in the bud. And the best way to do it is by twisting the law.
This is how he does it in court. His enforcer, the public prosecutor, argues that I had committed a grave contempt on the integrity of the Subordinate Court Judiciary. As authority, he cites various cases from commonwealth countries and England to support his stand. But none of those cases were even remotely similar to mine, let alone anyone in England or elsewhere being charged for contempt of court for something like this.
It was a long time ago, but I remember him citing one case from New Zealand, in which the defendant had gone to a court and thrown garbage and refuse into the courtroom, being upset about the decision of the judge that went against him. But the prosecutor conveniently fails to mention the facts. Instead he relies on passages that the judge made in the judgement such as "everyone should respect the court" or some such general statement. And the Judge Sinnathuray nods in agreement that what I did was showing disrespect. The prosecutor wins round one.
And this goes on. He refers to several other cases whose facts had not the slightest relevance whatsoever to mine. But in every one of those cases, even if the case referred to was one of murder, the prosecutor picks sentences from each of them which suits him, passages which are general in nature like "everyone should respect the law" and so on, as authority for the proposition that I committed contempt of court!
The late Mr. Jeyaretnam who was my counsel argues of course that these cases have no relevance at all to the facts in my case to which the judge has nothing to say.
In the end, the judge solemnly pronounces that since all these cases cited by the prosecutor clearly make it illegal for someone to show contempt to a court, therefore I had similarly shown contempt to the Subordinate Court Judiciary, the punishment being $8,000.00 fine or jail of 2 months.
What this case, Attorney General vs Gopalan Nair, has done is to set a precedent. English common law as in Singapore is based on precedent, or what is known in law as Stare Decisis. So by my case, Singapore law entrenches the rule that anyone who criticizes the court at an election rally shall be found guilty of contempt, regardless of whether or not the words were actually contemptuous. Since this is now the law of the land, the law has been debased and changed to suit Lee Kuan Yew's political agenda. His agenda being to stifle and silence dissent. Therefore in the future, anyone who had done what I did, can similarly be found in contempt of court by virtue of the case Attorney General vs Gopalan Nair. You see, by this means, the law is defiled and debased. It can no longer be considered sound law anywhere in the world, except in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore.
Take another example of Dr. Chee Soon Juan. He has been repeatedly convicted for making speeches and holding peaceful assemblies in public under laws that require permits. Anywhere else in the world, except perhaps in North Korea and Burma, such activity is not only permitted but also encouraged since it shows civic consciousness, a desired human quality in all democracies. But you see, in Singapore, such pubic speeches and peaceful assemblies, although in no way a threat to the country, and which is guaranteed by the constitution, are prosecuted. And in these prosecutions, the judge deliberately refuses even to look at the fact that the Constitution, the Supreme law of the land guarantees the people this right. Instead the judge only looks at another code section of the law, which by the way, is clearly contrary to the Constitution and therefore illegal, to convict him and send him to jail. Clearly a selective use of the law, is it not? Here again, you see, the law is twisted and stood on it's head to further Lee Kuan Yew's plan of total control.
And these cases go into the law books as authority for everyone thereafter to be punished for public speeches or public assembly, thanks to Dr. Chee's cases which have now set a precedent. Can anyone not see that through years of such abuse of the law, the law is being constantly re-written to become what it is today, a law to be laughed at, the laughing stock of lawyers all around the world.
And those responsible for permitting him to get away with completely destroying the law must answer for their actions. I am not only talking about the judges including ones such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean who presided over the defamation case of Lee Kuan Yew vs Dr. Chee Soon Juan. I am also talking about the prosecutors such as Jeffrey Chan who argue these cases, Assistant Superintend of Police Abdul Razak bin Zakaria who arrests innocent citizens on orders of Lee Kuan Yew, I am talking about each and every person who willingly does bad things to hurt his fellow citizens because it furthers his career.
Such people have not only brought shame to themselves and their families, they are responsible for the progressive destruction of the law to become what it is today, just a tool to prop up the dictator Lee Kuan Yew. And what is worse, they have let down their own country, because everything depends on the rule of law. Without it, nothing can function. Nothing can last.
Any self respecting lawyer who knows this should find another occupation or better still leave the country and practice elsewhere. And no young man or woman should ever contemplate the practice of law in Singapore if they wish to keep their dignity intact.
Most young men and women who wish to become lawyers have a passion and the hope to fight for justice, to further the interests of their fellow men. This is why they study the law, hoping to be good lawyers some day, to work and live as upright honest men and women in a career which requires hard work, honesty and integrity. I thought so myself when I read law in England and returned to practice in Singapore. It took me not more than 5 years to realize what Singapore law really was. A set of rules constantly changed to suit Lee Kuan Yew's purpose.
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, February 1, 2009
A call to every decent human being. Stay away from Singapore.
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Many travel guide books for Burma, comes with this advice. Tourists are asked not to visit Burma since doing so indirectly helps to prop up their military junta. Your spending in that country contributes to it's existence, helping them to continue with their repression. By staying away, you help some way to bring down that regime.
Tourists intending to come to Singapore should ask the same question. Are they contributing to Lee Kuan Yew's dictatorship by coming to Singapore? Discerning people around the world should already be aware of the repression that people suffer under the Lee Kuan Yew regime. Singaporeans are denied their basic human rights. Denied their right to peaceful protest. The right to peaceful assembly. A country which jails bloggers and peaceful protesters who have no other way to voice their dissent.
Singapore is a one party state which controls the entire media, where there no free press, where the execution rate of prisoners is highest in the world per capita, where prisoners are tortured by beatings, where contrary opinion is not tolerated, a country where the people live entirely at the mercy of the dictator Lee Kuan Yew and his minions who carry out his orders.
A country which represses it's people by punishing them with unjust laws, where judges such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of the High Court bankrupt opposition politicians by abusing the law, where the average man has no say at all in the running of his country, where Lee Kuan Yew and his minions pay themselves untold millions, while the average man teeters on the brink of poverty.
All that I say is clearly documented in internationally respected organs around the world, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders and a multitude of other internationally respected bodies. I ask the reader to check out what I say. The Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship of Singapore has until recently cleverly managed to hide this shameful fact, but now, through the laudable efforts of human rights organizations around the world, Singapore's true character has been amply revealed. Despite the tall buildings that skirt the waterfront, underneath it is nothing more than a Leninist one party state which punishes and banishes or imprisons persons who do not agree with them.
Anyone who has ever dared to challenge Lee Kuan Yew is promptly punished. In May last year, while in Singapore, I had written a blog post criticizing the disgraceful conduct of a High Court Judge there, Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, during the case of Lee Kuan Yew against Dr. Chee Soon Juan when Lee Kuan Yew was engaged in his favorite pastime of eliminating the opposition through his corrupt judges. I had written that this judge had prostituted her position as a judge by being thoroughly, shamelessly and openly biased against Lee's political opponent. When I had written about this in my blog on May 29, 2008, Lee Kuan Yew deployed his policeman, Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Razak Jakaria to have me taken into custody, kept in solitary confinement for 6 days while I was repeatedly interrogated for long hours both night and day, to break my will. All this is well documented on the Internet.
After this torture of 6 days in police custody, I was deliberately kept in Singapore for 5 months by their confiscating my passport, deliberately to cause untold financial hardship to me, having to remain in Singapore away from my home in the US. A small minded vindictive regime is what it is.
After my forcible confinement in Singapore for 5 months, in September 2008, my case is assigned to Judge Kan Teng Chiu, who shamelessly finds me guilty of insulting this Lee Kuan Yew's stooge Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and he sends me to jail for 3 months. I have since returned to the US and my work is now to expose this ruthless dictatorship who hold the entire Singapore population in fear of imprisonment and torture.
All good people around the world can help bring down this regime. Tourists should avoid Singapore if they can. This will stop your tourist dollars from coming to Singapore which will pressure this dictatorship to come to their senses.
Businessmen, if it possible should avoid doing business in Singapore. If possible, take your investments to countries that treat their people with dignity. Foreign students should avoid coming to Singapore for an education because simply put, you cannot get any education to speak of in circumstances where you have to worry about what you even say. Foreign universities should think twice about having any dealings with Singapore educational institutions and they should stop setting up campuses in Singapore. By doing so, you give legitimacy to this repressive regime, something that Lee Kuan Yew desperately wants.
In my case, not being satisfied with abusing the law to imprison me and to hold me back against my will in that country for 6 months, they have also banned me from ever entering Singapore without express permission from Lee Kuan Yew's minions. In reality what this means of course is that I am effectively banned from ever entering my country of birth, Singapore.
Tourism has already declined in Singapore lately. The shops are going bankrupt without shoppers. You can do your part by staying away, in ever way possible. Remember, every dealing you have with this repressive regime is enabling it to survive one extra day.
Thank you.
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,
Many travel guide books for Burma, comes with this advice. Tourists are asked not to visit Burma since doing so indirectly helps to prop up their military junta. Your spending in that country contributes to it's existence, helping them to continue with their repression. By staying away, you help some way to bring down that regime.
Tourists intending to come to Singapore should ask the same question. Are they contributing to Lee Kuan Yew's dictatorship by coming to Singapore? Discerning people around the world should already be aware of the repression that people suffer under the Lee Kuan Yew regime. Singaporeans are denied their basic human rights. Denied their right to peaceful protest. The right to peaceful assembly. A country which jails bloggers and peaceful protesters who have no other way to voice their dissent.
Singapore is a one party state which controls the entire media, where there no free press, where the execution rate of prisoners is highest in the world per capita, where prisoners are tortured by beatings, where contrary opinion is not tolerated, a country where the people live entirely at the mercy of the dictator Lee Kuan Yew and his minions who carry out his orders.
A country which represses it's people by punishing them with unjust laws, where judges such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of the High Court bankrupt opposition politicians by abusing the law, where the average man has no say at all in the running of his country, where Lee Kuan Yew and his minions pay themselves untold millions, while the average man teeters on the brink of poverty.
All that I say is clearly documented in internationally respected organs around the world, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders and a multitude of other internationally respected bodies. I ask the reader to check out what I say. The Lee Kuan Yew dictatorship of Singapore has until recently cleverly managed to hide this shameful fact, but now, through the laudable efforts of human rights organizations around the world, Singapore's true character has been amply revealed. Despite the tall buildings that skirt the waterfront, underneath it is nothing more than a Leninist one party state which punishes and banishes or imprisons persons who do not agree with them.
Anyone who has ever dared to challenge Lee Kuan Yew is promptly punished. In May last year, while in Singapore, I had written a blog post criticizing the disgraceful conduct of a High Court Judge there, Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean, during the case of Lee Kuan Yew against Dr. Chee Soon Juan when Lee Kuan Yew was engaged in his favorite pastime of eliminating the opposition through his corrupt judges. I had written that this judge had prostituted her position as a judge by being thoroughly, shamelessly and openly biased against Lee's political opponent. When I had written about this in my blog on May 29, 2008, Lee Kuan Yew deployed his policeman, Assistant Superintendent of Police Abdul Razak Jakaria to have me taken into custody, kept in solitary confinement for 6 days while I was repeatedly interrogated for long hours both night and day, to break my will. All this is well documented on the Internet.
After this torture of 6 days in police custody, I was deliberately kept in Singapore for 5 months by their confiscating my passport, deliberately to cause untold financial hardship to me, having to remain in Singapore away from my home in the US. A small minded vindictive regime is what it is.
After my forcible confinement in Singapore for 5 months, in September 2008, my case is assigned to Judge Kan Teng Chiu, who shamelessly finds me guilty of insulting this Lee Kuan Yew's stooge Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean and he sends me to jail for 3 months. I have since returned to the US and my work is now to expose this ruthless dictatorship who hold the entire Singapore population in fear of imprisonment and torture.
All good people around the world can help bring down this regime. Tourists should avoid Singapore if they can. This will stop your tourist dollars from coming to Singapore which will pressure this dictatorship to come to their senses.
Businessmen, if it possible should avoid doing business in Singapore. If possible, take your investments to countries that treat their people with dignity. Foreign students should avoid coming to Singapore for an education because simply put, you cannot get any education to speak of in circumstances where you have to worry about what you even say. Foreign universities should think twice about having any dealings with Singapore educational institutions and they should stop setting up campuses in Singapore. By doing so, you give legitimacy to this repressive regime, something that Lee Kuan Yew desperately wants.
In my case, not being satisfied with abusing the law to imprison me and to hold me back against my will in that country for 6 months, they have also banned me from ever entering Singapore without express permission from Lee Kuan Yew's minions. In reality what this means of course is that I am effectively banned from ever entering my country of birth, Singapore.
Tourism has already declined in Singapore lately. The shops are going bankrupt without shoppers. You can do your part by staying away, in ever way possible. Remember, every dealing you have with this repressive regime is enabling it to survive one extra day.
Thank you.
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.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Singapore. Assurances of the Singapore President, the Singapore Finance Minister and the Lee Kuan Yew's son are not reassuring.
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The grim forecast on the Singapore's economy keeps coming in. Worst recession in Asia. 300,000 jobs to be lost in 2009. The population to shrink by a certain percentage. The foreign population of Singapore will leave almost to the last man. Singapore Airlines losing traffic, cargo and pilots. Ships leaving Singapore port for Tanjong Pelapas.
Really it looks very bad. Yet the 86 year old Minister Mentor who used to carry a hatchet in his bag to kill off his enemies, either metaphorically or otherwise I could not tell; his minion Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the Finance Minister and his son whom he placed as Prime Minister; all claim that all this will pass, it is all normal economic fluctuations, nothing to worry about, get yourself a glass of soda, ice cream, relax and everything is going to be fine! Really?
I don't think so. The Singapore model is broken. Incongruous. The parts do not fit. It cannot work.
In the 1960s Singapore was a place for cheap labor. This was its niche. A disciplined willing and ignorant work force working for peanuts was excellent for foreign companies. Quiet submissive obedient workers who will take anything and never go on strike. But this was not the people's idea. In fact the people had no part to play in the entire economy of Singapore since its inception. It was Lee Kuan Yew and his minions who decided everything. It is this lack of the people's output that will see the downfall of this economy.
Then it was banking. Foreign banks were persuaded to set up office here. The money they were particularly after was the illegal money from cheats all over the world. Now you have Burmese drug lords, thieves and cheats from India who avoided Indian taxation, Indonesian cheats who robbed banks, Robert Mugabe who banks his ill gotten gains in Singapore because no one else will accept it, and every other crook in the world finds sanctuary in Singapore. This dirty money is what keeps Lee Kuan Yew and his government going.
And then we have bio tech industry. Several millions of very good money is invested into this industry. Question is will it succeed? I think not. This high technology science involves the presence in Singapore of highly educated people. These people are the first to be informed of the sad state of human rights in Singapore where decent people are sent to jail merely because they wrote a blog post, merely because they carried out a peaceful protest! This intolerance for normal human rights destroys the reputation of any country, just as that of Burma which is completely destroyed. With the bad reputation that Singapore has, being a dictatorship which rules through fear, you are not going to get educated honest scientists to associate with a disgraced state like Singapore.
Where the law is daily abused by corrupt judges, such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of the Singapore High Court, to punish and imprison Lee’s critics. There are a few scientists who might be willing to associate with a disgraced state like Singapore for very high salaries but how many are they? Not a single self respecting scientist will be willing to be seen within a mile of a country like this, let alone be associated with it. Of course, no one can really know the truth, since Singapore’s media is state controlled, and just like other state controlled media, you never hear the bad news. What else do you expect from propaganda?
And then you have tourism. But Singapore has overpriced itself so much and it has got such a bad name for denying human rights, for having the highest execution rate in the world, for torturing their people and foreigners by beating them on their buttocks, for denying lawyers for political opponents of Lee, by denying free speech, expression and assembly, Singapore is now equated with the intolerant dictatorships of the Middle East and Africa. With this bad publicity, a place of tyrannical rule, where people are afraid to speak their minds, honest educated tourists shun the country and go elsewhere such as Thailand, which respect democracy.
Having realized that they have lost all, they have no choice but to turn to gambling. But the success of gambling is not a guarantee. With Taiwan building casinos and even Macao losing money, why should the Chinese rich have any reason to come all the way to Singapore?
The desire to for gambling, in a country which all along considered it taboo, is indication enough. It is desperate. Singapore has lost its niche. Through the greed of Lee Kuan Yew, he has throughout kept the people away from the decision making process. All these years, a few sycophants and yes men who have passed their exams were given carte blanch to do anything they want. And usually when decisions are made without consulting the people, they are usually wrong. Democracies rely on the opinions of everyone, which taken as a whole, guide national policy. That is why democracies may be slow but they remain sound. They don't fall like a house of cards, which is exactly what is going to happen to Singapore; fall like a house of cards.
Singapore has nothing to offer the foreigner. The money laundering part of Singapore banking is coming to an end. President Obama has already made it clear $50 billion is lost to the American Treasury through unpaid taxes, money that is running to tax havens such as Nauru, a pacific atoll and Singapore. This cannot be. He is going to demand Singapore open its books to revel the identity of these crooks, which means the dirty money business will come to an end.
Biotech industry too will end. Foreign western countries are aware they are losing their talent to Singapore because some unscrupulous scientists are willing to forget their duty to mankind and be associated with a dictatorship like Singapore. In any case, none of these scientists are actually stationed here permanently. They spend no more than 1 month a year in Singapore, spending most of their time in laboratories in US Universities. For the Singapore government to say these scientists are in Singapore is stretching imagination to breaking point.
Airlines are losing to Emirates. Foreigners have no desire to dig roots in a country that has the highest rate of executing human beings, torturing human beings and one that denies basic human rights to their citizens as well as foreigners. They use Singapore as a revolving door. Make money and leave.
Since the average man's ideas are irrelevant, the government has been planning what is best. And as usual they get it wrong. And there is no way these mistakes can be corrected.
Today the country has effectively priced itself out of competition. Assembly line work has moved to the neighboring cheaper countries. Illegal banking is coming to an end. Regional airlines are taking the business out of the expensive Singapore air carrier. Biotech and other manufacturing are no longer coming to Singapore. It is as expensive to operate there as in their home countries. Shipping traffic is moving to cheaper and equally efficient Malaysia.
And to top it all, Singapore has the lowest reproduction rate in the world. It also leads the world in the numbers fleeing from the country.
The state controlled Singapore media talks of figures that Singapore claims to have, 400 billion dollars or some such figure. Yet Lee Kuan Yew has never been willing to state the exact figure or where these moneys are invested. I suspect, since it is reasonable to suspect in these secretive circumstances, that in fact Singapore may have a fraction of that money or no money at all! It could be even in a more desperate position than Mugabe's Zimbabwe! We never know, and we can never know because the Lee Kuan Yew remains adamant in not revealing the requested information. As far as I am concerned, it does not matter whether Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore has 400 billion dollars or ten times that. All that money will go in 2 weeks because Singapore really has lost its edge in the market place.
With the present deepest recession ever in history of this island nation without natural recourse, and with a very bad name as a place which denies it’s people their human rights, what can it do now to compete with the world? What does it have to offer? With the much higher wages that people need to live in expensive Singapore, and with the very large public sector, I am not sure if there is anything that Singapore can sell. I know there is oil refining, the air carrier and banking. All areas which are logically going to lose out either to cheaper neighboring countries or because western countries no longer find it profitable to be in a high cost country like Singapore or a country disgraced.
More suicides, more poverty and more hot air from Lee Kuan Yew and his minions published in the state controlled press. I don’t see anything else.
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 grim forecast on the Singapore's economy keeps coming in. Worst recession in Asia. 300,000 jobs to be lost in 2009. The population to shrink by a certain percentage. The foreign population of Singapore will leave almost to the last man. Singapore Airlines losing traffic, cargo and pilots. Ships leaving Singapore port for Tanjong Pelapas.
Really it looks very bad. Yet the 86 year old Minister Mentor who used to carry a hatchet in his bag to kill off his enemies, either metaphorically or otherwise I could not tell; his minion Tharman Shanmugaratnam, the Finance Minister and his son whom he placed as Prime Minister; all claim that all this will pass, it is all normal economic fluctuations, nothing to worry about, get yourself a glass of soda, ice cream, relax and everything is going to be fine! Really?
I don't think so. The Singapore model is broken. Incongruous. The parts do not fit. It cannot work.
In the 1960s Singapore was a place for cheap labor. This was its niche. A disciplined willing and ignorant work force working for peanuts was excellent for foreign companies. Quiet submissive obedient workers who will take anything and never go on strike. But this was not the people's idea. In fact the people had no part to play in the entire economy of Singapore since its inception. It was Lee Kuan Yew and his minions who decided everything. It is this lack of the people's output that will see the downfall of this economy.
Then it was banking. Foreign banks were persuaded to set up office here. The money they were particularly after was the illegal money from cheats all over the world. Now you have Burmese drug lords, thieves and cheats from India who avoided Indian taxation, Indonesian cheats who robbed banks, Robert Mugabe who banks his ill gotten gains in Singapore because no one else will accept it, and every other crook in the world finds sanctuary in Singapore. This dirty money is what keeps Lee Kuan Yew and his government going.
And then we have bio tech industry. Several millions of very good money is invested into this industry. Question is will it succeed? I think not. This high technology science involves the presence in Singapore of highly educated people. These people are the first to be informed of the sad state of human rights in Singapore where decent people are sent to jail merely because they wrote a blog post, merely because they carried out a peaceful protest! This intolerance for normal human rights destroys the reputation of any country, just as that of Burma which is completely destroyed. With the bad reputation that Singapore has, being a dictatorship which rules through fear, you are not going to get educated honest scientists to associate with a disgraced state like Singapore.
Where the law is daily abused by corrupt judges, such as Judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of the Singapore High Court, to punish and imprison Lee’s critics. There are a few scientists who might be willing to associate with a disgraced state like Singapore for very high salaries but how many are they? Not a single self respecting scientist will be willing to be seen within a mile of a country like this, let alone be associated with it. Of course, no one can really know the truth, since Singapore’s media is state controlled, and just like other state controlled media, you never hear the bad news. What else do you expect from propaganda?
And then you have tourism. But Singapore has overpriced itself so much and it has got such a bad name for denying human rights, for having the highest execution rate in the world, for torturing their people and foreigners by beating them on their buttocks, for denying lawyers for political opponents of Lee, by denying free speech, expression and assembly, Singapore is now equated with the intolerant dictatorships of the Middle East and Africa. With this bad publicity, a place of tyrannical rule, where people are afraid to speak their minds, honest educated tourists shun the country and go elsewhere such as Thailand, which respect democracy.
Having realized that they have lost all, they have no choice but to turn to gambling. But the success of gambling is not a guarantee. With Taiwan building casinos and even Macao losing money, why should the Chinese rich have any reason to come all the way to Singapore?
The desire to for gambling, in a country which all along considered it taboo, is indication enough. It is desperate. Singapore has lost its niche. Through the greed of Lee Kuan Yew, he has throughout kept the people away from the decision making process. All these years, a few sycophants and yes men who have passed their exams were given carte blanch to do anything they want. And usually when decisions are made without consulting the people, they are usually wrong. Democracies rely on the opinions of everyone, which taken as a whole, guide national policy. That is why democracies may be slow but they remain sound. They don't fall like a house of cards, which is exactly what is going to happen to Singapore; fall like a house of cards.
Singapore has nothing to offer the foreigner. The money laundering part of Singapore banking is coming to an end. President Obama has already made it clear $50 billion is lost to the American Treasury through unpaid taxes, money that is running to tax havens such as Nauru, a pacific atoll and Singapore. This cannot be. He is going to demand Singapore open its books to revel the identity of these crooks, which means the dirty money business will come to an end.
Biotech industry too will end. Foreign western countries are aware they are losing their talent to Singapore because some unscrupulous scientists are willing to forget their duty to mankind and be associated with a dictatorship like Singapore. In any case, none of these scientists are actually stationed here permanently. They spend no more than 1 month a year in Singapore, spending most of their time in laboratories in US Universities. For the Singapore government to say these scientists are in Singapore is stretching imagination to breaking point.
Airlines are losing to Emirates. Foreigners have no desire to dig roots in a country that has the highest rate of executing human beings, torturing human beings and one that denies basic human rights to their citizens as well as foreigners. They use Singapore as a revolving door. Make money and leave.
Since the average man's ideas are irrelevant, the government has been planning what is best. And as usual they get it wrong. And there is no way these mistakes can be corrected.
Today the country has effectively priced itself out of competition. Assembly line work has moved to the neighboring cheaper countries. Illegal banking is coming to an end. Regional airlines are taking the business out of the expensive Singapore air carrier. Biotech and other manufacturing are no longer coming to Singapore. It is as expensive to operate there as in their home countries. Shipping traffic is moving to cheaper and equally efficient Malaysia.
And to top it all, Singapore has the lowest reproduction rate in the world. It also leads the world in the numbers fleeing from the country.
The state controlled Singapore media talks of figures that Singapore claims to have, 400 billion dollars or some such figure. Yet Lee Kuan Yew has never been willing to state the exact figure or where these moneys are invested. I suspect, since it is reasonable to suspect in these secretive circumstances, that in fact Singapore may have a fraction of that money or no money at all! It could be even in a more desperate position than Mugabe's Zimbabwe! We never know, and we can never know because the Lee Kuan Yew remains adamant in not revealing the requested information. As far as I am concerned, it does not matter whether Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore has 400 billion dollars or ten times that. All that money will go in 2 weeks because Singapore really has lost its edge in the market place.
With the present deepest recession ever in history of this island nation without natural recourse, and with a very bad name as a place which denies it’s people their human rights, what can it do now to compete with the world? What does it have to offer? With the much higher wages that people need to live in expensive Singapore, and with the very large public sector, I am not sure if there is anything that Singapore can sell. I know there is oil refining, the air carrier and banking. All areas which are logically going to lose out either to cheaper neighboring countries or because western countries no longer find it profitable to be in a high cost country like Singapore or a country disgraced.
More suicides, more poverty and more hot air from Lee Kuan Yew and his minions published in the state controlled press. I don’t see anything else.
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.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Something about myself. A ten year old boy who never grew up.
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
A digression. Something about myself. When I was in Singapore from May last year to November, a lady whom I knew said to me that I was just like a 10 year old boy who never grew up! In fact that was the nicest words anyone ever said to me. I hope I remain so. Forever.
I knew Singapore well but the bus rides, MRT stations etc were new to me. I was after all many years away from Singapore. I asked her to take me to Changi beach to look at planes landing, to Labrador Park to see the ships pass by, to the railway tracks to see the trains go by. I love to see ships, planes and trains. And she said to me, I was like a 10 year old boy. But truly I love these things.
I think she guessed this was the last time I could see Singapore, since as you know, I was soon thereafter banned from entering the country by orders of Lee Kuan Yew. I think she felt sorry for me and she obliged by taking me to see ships trains and aeroplanes.
My father when I was a child took me on Malayan Railway trains almost every Sunday morning to Kluang or Segament in Johore only to catch the oncoming southbound train back to Singapore. I was fascinated by trains. I used to visit Paya Lebar airport to watch planes landing one after another, watching their glide path, holding steady straight and level just above the runway, before flaring with nose slightly up and tail down just before touchdown. I used to pretend to know certain officers on ships docked at Keppel Harbor and get passes to board them. On one occasion, I managed to board the MV Laos docked at the Keppel Harbor, I went to the galley and ordered Courvoisier Cognac, drank so much, that the French bartender took the cap off the bottle and told me to take it easy, reminding me it was Courvoisier that I was messing with. I was 17. It was my luck that I still managed to walk off the gangway to the dock in that state and not fall over the rail into the water. I am not sure whether this vessel is still in service. It belonged to a French company Messageries Maritimes. At that time, it was a cargo passenger vessel plying between Singapore and Vietnam, formerly French Indo China.
Any man is molded by his childhood. I had a happy one. My father had great wisdom and understanding of how a boy should grow up. My life with my father and mother was full of adventure stories, of Treasure Island, of Alexander the Great and his conquests around the world. Of mountaineers and sailors and airmen. He was a great newspaper reader. Once as a boy, he told me Gamal Abdel Nasser occupied the Suez Canal. Of course I did not know anything of Nasser or what in Heavens was Suez. But I knew it was a big thing, seeing the expression on his face. And it is these things that develop curiosity in a child. And also principles. Yes, principles, very important. He used to tell me always to speak the truth, never mind even if they take your head.
And of course, as a boy, I used to take all these things seriously. I admired airmen who made history by flying around the world in light aircraft, of sailors who crossed the oceans in nothing more than dinghies, of Edmund Hilary, first man to conquer Everest in 1953, of Dr. Bannister who ran the 3 minute mile. Of Krishna and Arjun in the Hindu Mahabharata, who overcame the evil in battle.
And it is these things that stayed with me ever since. And thank God, I am this way, thanks to my father and mother.
Honor is the foundation upon which everything has to rest. One has to earn money with honor, because without honor, it is worth nothing. It is better to be poor and honorable, than rich with dishonor. That is the teaching of my late father which has stayed with me forever.
I learned sailing at Changi Sailing Club. You could hire sailboats then. I once took out a 420 sailboat and took it around Ubin. It is surprising how narrow the channel is on the north side from Malaysia. I would say, perhaps 300 feet.
Later I bought a Laser dinghy. It is a cat rigged, unstayed single sail one man boat, about 14 feet. Once I had a life and death incident. I took out the Laser, crossed the channel towards Ubin and headed towards Tekong Kechil, then Tekong Besar, and almost before Tanjong Pengarrang village in Johore, hit high wind. Not being an experience sailor then, about 500 feet from the Tekong shoreline, the boat capsized and turned turtle, with the mast underwater pointing to the sea bed, and the hull facing up. To right the boat, I climbed on the hull, grabbed the centerboard sticking up and managed to right her up. Only problem was the wind was abeam, which meant that she capsized again to the other side.
The trick was of course to face the bow into the wind and then try to right her. That way, the wind will not catch the sail when upright. This I soon realized swam around and turned the bow into the wind and managed to get her up. I then climbed from the transom on to the boat. Only problem now was, the mainsheet had slipped from the shackle block which meant that I had no control of the sail. The mainsheet was flapping in the wind at the end of the boom. The only thing I could do was to grab the boom with one hand, tiller on the other and managed to reach Tekong beach.
I was famished, dehydrated. No water to drink at all. Dying of thirst. I met a Thai worker driving a tractor on the beach. I think they were constructing Tekong Army Camp. I used sign gestures to say I was thirsty. He took me on the tractor to a large barrel containing water. I drank to my fill. The time now was almost 5 pm. It will soon get dark. I had to get back to Changi Sailing Club. I tried to push the boat back into the sea and get on it. Problem was each time the waves pushed it right back. Anyhow after a few attempts I managed to get on it and sail it.
The wind had almost died down. It was night fall. I was underway, but only just. Just after I passed Tekong Kechil it got completely dark. I was on the north side of the channel heading towards the beacon across from the sailing club. I was sailing very slowly just beside the beacon, about 2o feet away from it, when my hull hit a rock underneath! What! I was 20 feet away from it! Surely the water is deep enough. It was low tide you see, and the rocks were just under the surface of the water, unseen. And what was worse, there was no wind. And mine was a sailboat. No motor.
So I got out of the boat and stood on the submerged rock holding it. My boat had no lights. Not even a flash light.
Mind you the narrow channel between Ubin and Changi Sailing club is busy with large tankers and cargo vessel traffic moving across. By now there was no wind at all. If I did attempt to sail the boat across the channel, with what wind I had, what happens if the wind dies completely when I am in the middle of it, with a tanker coming straight at me!
I had to make a decision. One, abandon the boat, swim to the beacon and wait till morning for help. Two, take a risk and cross with what little wind I had and hope it will hold till I reached Changi shore. I told myself, Gopalan Nair, do or die, I will risk it. I am going to sail it across and hope for the best. There was a little wind and I managed to inch forward. I was hardly moving. But when I was in the middle of the channel, my worst nightmares came true. From the west Pasir Gudang side, true enough there was this huge vessel lying high above the water heading straight at me. And I was stuck in the middle with no wind! I could not move! The ship was going to hit me!
You learn in sailing a principle that if you rock the boat left to right hard repeatedly, you will get a little forward propulsion. And this is what I was doing frantically to move the boat out of the way of that ship. When he closed, he sounded his horn. Obviously he saw me. The channel being so narrow and deep water only in the middle, the ship can hardly maneuver out of my way.
I was lucky to be about 10 feet clear of that big ship when it passed me. It was lying very high above the water; with its huge propeller blades half exposed, obviously empty except for ballast, emerging from the water and splashing it with a load roar each time when they came around hitting the water. I was lucky my boat was not pulled towards it, being so close, as that would have been the end of me.
Tired haggard bruised and famished I managed to beach the boat on shore. The time now was about 9 pm. On the beach with a large beer in hand, and pot belly, there a large Australian. I told him briefly what happened. You can imagine my irritation when he asked me whether the boat was all right! For heavens sake I nearly died!
Rider Haggard's King Solomon Mines has a dedication at the beginning which reads as follows:
This faithful but unpretended record of a remarkable adventure is hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator Allan Quartermain to all the big and little boys who read it.
Truly some boys never really grow up. And that is the best life any boy can have, whether you are a big one or a small one.
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,
A digression. Something about myself. When I was in Singapore from May last year to November, a lady whom I knew said to me that I was just like a 10 year old boy who never grew up! In fact that was the nicest words anyone ever said to me. I hope I remain so. Forever.
I knew Singapore well but the bus rides, MRT stations etc were new to me. I was after all many years away from Singapore. I asked her to take me to Changi beach to look at planes landing, to Labrador Park to see the ships pass by, to the railway tracks to see the trains go by. I love to see ships, planes and trains. And she said to me, I was like a 10 year old boy. But truly I love these things.
I think she guessed this was the last time I could see Singapore, since as you know, I was soon thereafter banned from entering the country by orders of Lee Kuan Yew. I think she felt sorry for me and she obliged by taking me to see ships trains and aeroplanes.
My father when I was a child took me on Malayan Railway trains almost every Sunday morning to Kluang or Segament in Johore only to catch the oncoming southbound train back to Singapore. I was fascinated by trains. I used to visit Paya Lebar airport to watch planes landing one after another, watching their glide path, holding steady straight and level just above the runway, before flaring with nose slightly up and tail down just before touchdown. I used to pretend to know certain officers on ships docked at Keppel Harbor and get passes to board them. On one occasion, I managed to board the MV Laos docked at the Keppel Harbor, I went to the galley and ordered Courvoisier Cognac, drank so much, that the French bartender took the cap off the bottle and told me to take it easy, reminding me it was Courvoisier that I was messing with. I was 17. It was my luck that I still managed to walk off the gangway to the dock in that state and not fall over the rail into the water. I am not sure whether this vessel is still in service. It belonged to a French company Messageries Maritimes. At that time, it was a cargo passenger vessel plying between Singapore and Vietnam, formerly French Indo China.
Any man is molded by his childhood. I had a happy one. My father had great wisdom and understanding of how a boy should grow up. My life with my father and mother was full of adventure stories, of Treasure Island, of Alexander the Great and his conquests around the world. Of mountaineers and sailors and airmen. He was a great newspaper reader. Once as a boy, he told me Gamal Abdel Nasser occupied the Suez Canal. Of course I did not know anything of Nasser or what in Heavens was Suez. But I knew it was a big thing, seeing the expression on his face. And it is these things that develop curiosity in a child. And also principles. Yes, principles, very important. He used to tell me always to speak the truth, never mind even if they take your head.
And of course, as a boy, I used to take all these things seriously. I admired airmen who made history by flying around the world in light aircraft, of sailors who crossed the oceans in nothing more than dinghies, of Edmund Hilary, first man to conquer Everest in 1953, of Dr. Bannister who ran the 3 minute mile. Of Krishna and Arjun in the Hindu Mahabharata, who overcame the evil in battle.
And it is these things that stayed with me ever since. And thank God, I am this way, thanks to my father and mother.
Honor is the foundation upon which everything has to rest. One has to earn money with honor, because without honor, it is worth nothing. It is better to be poor and honorable, than rich with dishonor. That is the teaching of my late father which has stayed with me forever.
I learned sailing at Changi Sailing Club. You could hire sailboats then. I once took out a 420 sailboat and took it around Ubin. It is surprising how narrow the channel is on the north side from Malaysia. I would say, perhaps 300 feet.
Later I bought a Laser dinghy. It is a cat rigged, unstayed single sail one man boat, about 14 feet. Once I had a life and death incident. I took out the Laser, crossed the channel towards Ubin and headed towards Tekong Kechil, then Tekong Besar, and almost before Tanjong Pengarrang village in Johore, hit high wind. Not being an experience sailor then, about 500 feet from the Tekong shoreline, the boat capsized and turned turtle, with the mast underwater pointing to the sea bed, and the hull facing up. To right the boat, I climbed on the hull, grabbed the centerboard sticking up and managed to right her up. Only problem was the wind was abeam, which meant that she capsized again to the other side.
The trick was of course to face the bow into the wind and then try to right her. That way, the wind will not catch the sail when upright. This I soon realized swam around and turned the bow into the wind and managed to get her up. I then climbed from the transom on to the boat. Only problem now was, the mainsheet had slipped from the shackle block which meant that I had no control of the sail. The mainsheet was flapping in the wind at the end of the boom. The only thing I could do was to grab the boom with one hand, tiller on the other and managed to reach Tekong beach.
I was famished, dehydrated. No water to drink at all. Dying of thirst. I met a Thai worker driving a tractor on the beach. I think they were constructing Tekong Army Camp. I used sign gestures to say I was thirsty. He took me on the tractor to a large barrel containing water. I drank to my fill. The time now was almost 5 pm. It will soon get dark. I had to get back to Changi Sailing Club. I tried to push the boat back into the sea and get on it. Problem was each time the waves pushed it right back. Anyhow after a few attempts I managed to get on it and sail it.
The wind had almost died down. It was night fall. I was underway, but only just. Just after I passed Tekong Kechil it got completely dark. I was on the north side of the channel heading towards the beacon across from the sailing club. I was sailing very slowly just beside the beacon, about 2o feet away from it, when my hull hit a rock underneath! What! I was 20 feet away from it! Surely the water is deep enough. It was low tide you see, and the rocks were just under the surface of the water, unseen. And what was worse, there was no wind. And mine was a sailboat. No motor.
So I got out of the boat and stood on the submerged rock holding it. My boat had no lights. Not even a flash light.
Mind you the narrow channel between Ubin and Changi Sailing club is busy with large tankers and cargo vessel traffic moving across. By now there was no wind at all. If I did attempt to sail the boat across the channel, with what wind I had, what happens if the wind dies completely when I am in the middle of it, with a tanker coming straight at me!
I had to make a decision. One, abandon the boat, swim to the beacon and wait till morning for help. Two, take a risk and cross with what little wind I had and hope it will hold till I reached Changi shore. I told myself, Gopalan Nair, do or die, I will risk it. I am going to sail it across and hope for the best. There was a little wind and I managed to inch forward. I was hardly moving. But when I was in the middle of the channel, my worst nightmares came true. From the west Pasir Gudang side, true enough there was this huge vessel lying high above the water heading straight at me. And I was stuck in the middle with no wind! I could not move! The ship was going to hit me!
You learn in sailing a principle that if you rock the boat left to right hard repeatedly, you will get a little forward propulsion. And this is what I was doing frantically to move the boat out of the way of that ship. When he closed, he sounded his horn. Obviously he saw me. The channel being so narrow and deep water only in the middle, the ship can hardly maneuver out of my way.
I was lucky to be about 10 feet clear of that big ship when it passed me. It was lying very high above the water; with its huge propeller blades half exposed, obviously empty except for ballast, emerging from the water and splashing it with a load roar each time when they came around hitting the water. I was lucky my boat was not pulled towards it, being so close, as that would have been the end of me.
Tired haggard bruised and famished I managed to beach the boat on shore. The time now was about 9 pm. On the beach with a large beer in hand, and pot belly, there a large Australian. I told him briefly what happened. You can imagine my irritation when he asked me whether the boat was all right! For heavens sake I nearly died!
Rider Haggard's King Solomon Mines has a dedication at the beginning which reads as follows:
This faithful but unpretended record of a remarkable adventure is hereby respectfully dedicated by the narrator Allan Quartermain to all the big and little boys who read it.
Truly some boys never really grow up. And that is the best life any boy can have, whether you are a big one or a small one.
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, January 28, 2009
Singapore. The worst place in the world for a worker to be given the pink slip
Readers of this blog who are unfamiliar with the goings on in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, may think reading the comments that there are many who think Singapore is a democracy based on the rule of law. The reader is warned that they may be Singapore government employees whose job is to discredit those who criticize Lee Kuan Yew's authoritarian rule. Please use your discretion as to how much weight you will give these comments.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I was listening to the BBC radio World Briefings today 2 pm California time. On the world wide layoffs, someone, an expert on employment was asked to name the worst place in the world to be given the pink slip, a term referring to lay off notice. Not surprisingly, his answer was Singapore. He was in Singapore about 2 months ago, and gave an example. The casino which was under construction suddenly came to a standstill because the company went bust, and 3,000 people suddenly lost their jobs. Since jobs are directly connected to a particular employer, they were immediately packed up and sent home. Today you have a job, and tomorrow you are repatriated. As simple as that.
Not to say that in the US, jobs are not related to particular employers. But at least here, the police do not pick you up the very next day and put you on a flight to your country. And what is worse in Singapore is this. If that worker is unable to return immediately and delays leaving, if he finally wants to leave the country, he is arrested at the airport, handed over to the police and imprisoned. If that is not enough, the poor man will be caned, or rather tortured as well. A totally inhuman way to treat human beings, to say the least!
The man was asked which country is the best for layoffs, his answer being Denmark. There people are helped in finding alternative employment, or retrained and somehow helped to remain in the country. That you see, is a civilized first world country, not Singapore.
My message to foreigners is this. Whether you are a low wage construction or manual worker or a high pay executive, stay away from Singapore. It is a heartless country that treats their people no better than animals. Even a dog is entitled to better treatment than this.
Local Singaporeans fare no better. The government makes a great hoo haa about retraining laid off workers and providing assistance. All this is a so much of drivel, nothing more. The state controlled press of Singapore can say anything they want. At the end of the day, the poor unemployed Singaporean is much worse than any foreigner. At least the foreigner can go back to his country and somehow make do. In Singapore the unemployed have to permanently suffer at the hands of this totalitarian government, which continues to rule through their propaganda machine, the state controlled press.
Coming back to the foreigner, the pain of layoffs is great. Very great. When I was in Singapore's Queenstown Prison from Sept 20 to Nov 20, 2008, Gopalan Nair Prisoner Number 101232008, for criticizing a judge, Belinda Ang Saw Ean for her bias in a politically motivated trial against dissident Dr. Chee Soon Juan, one of my cell mates was a Chinese national who worked illegally in Singapore for more than 2 years as a masseur. He told me he came to Singapore with a visit pass, not an employment pass and worked illegally. The reason was the agents in China were asking for $10,000.00 for him to work in Singapore. Since he did not have $10,000.00, he did the next best thing. He worked without a work permit. He told me he will be caned 6 times for the overstay and working illegally, a brutal, inhumane way to treat a human.
Assuming he had the $10,000.00, if he lost his job within a day of his arrival, he too will be sent home. These people have to sell their houses and borrow money from loan sharks for the privilege of working in Singapore. If they are sent home, they face not only poverty and intolerable indebtedness, but also physical harm or mortal danger for them and their families. Lee Kuan Yew has no worry treating these human beings this way. A country so uncaring, it is unimaginable.
In the US, there are people who overstay their visas and even work illegally. They do get punished in the sense of their not being able to receive visas in future. But at least they can go home if they want without being stopped at the airport and handed over to the police.
The USA is a country that treats humans the way they should. Not Singapore which is a police state which treats not only their own people but also foreigners no better than animals.
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,
I was listening to the BBC radio World Briefings today 2 pm California time. On the world wide layoffs, someone, an expert on employment was asked to name the worst place in the world to be given the pink slip, a term referring to lay off notice. Not surprisingly, his answer was Singapore. He was in Singapore about 2 months ago, and gave an example. The casino which was under construction suddenly came to a standstill because the company went bust, and 3,000 people suddenly lost their jobs. Since jobs are directly connected to a particular employer, they were immediately packed up and sent home. Today you have a job, and tomorrow you are repatriated. As simple as that.
Not to say that in the US, jobs are not related to particular employers. But at least here, the police do not pick you up the very next day and put you on a flight to your country. And what is worse in Singapore is this. If that worker is unable to return immediately and delays leaving, if he finally wants to leave the country, he is arrested at the airport, handed over to the police and imprisoned. If that is not enough, the poor man will be caned, or rather tortured as well. A totally inhuman way to treat human beings, to say the least!
The man was asked which country is the best for layoffs, his answer being Denmark. There people are helped in finding alternative employment, or retrained and somehow helped to remain in the country. That you see, is a civilized first world country, not Singapore.
My message to foreigners is this. Whether you are a low wage construction or manual worker or a high pay executive, stay away from Singapore. It is a heartless country that treats their people no better than animals. Even a dog is entitled to better treatment than this.
Local Singaporeans fare no better. The government makes a great hoo haa about retraining laid off workers and providing assistance. All this is a so much of drivel, nothing more. The state controlled press of Singapore can say anything they want. At the end of the day, the poor unemployed Singaporean is much worse than any foreigner. At least the foreigner can go back to his country and somehow make do. In Singapore the unemployed have to permanently suffer at the hands of this totalitarian government, which continues to rule through their propaganda machine, the state controlled press.
Coming back to the foreigner, the pain of layoffs is great. Very great. When I was in Singapore's Queenstown Prison from Sept 20 to Nov 20, 2008, Gopalan Nair Prisoner Number 101232008, for criticizing a judge, Belinda Ang Saw Ean for her bias in a politically motivated trial against dissident Dr. Chee Soon Juan, one of my cell mates was a Chinese national who worked illegally in Singapore for more than 2 years as a masseur. He told me he came to Singapore with a visit pass, not an employment pass and worked illegally. The reason was the agents in China were asking for $10,000.00 for him to work in Singapore. Since he did not have $10,000.00, he did the next best thing. He worked without a work permit. He told me he will be caned 6 times for the overstay and working illegally, a brutal, inhumane way to treat a human.
Assuming he had the $10,000.00, if he lost his job within a day of his arrival, he too will be sent home. These people have to sell their houses and borrow money from loan sharks for the privilege of working in Singapore. If they are sent home, they face not only poverty and intolerable indebtedness, but also physical harm or mortal danger for them and their families. Lee Kuan Yew has no worry treating these human beings this way. A country so uncaring, it is unimaginable.
In the US, there are people who overstay their visas and even work illegally. They do get punished in the sense of their not being able to receive visas in future. But at least they can go home if they want without being stopped at the airport and handed over to the police.
The USA is a country that treats humans the way they should. Not Singapore which is a police state which treats not only their own people but also foreigners no better than animals.
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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