Singapore's disregard for rule of law hurts the island

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The statements of the American Todd family who were in Singapore recently for the inquest into their son's death told us volumes of how people view the Singapore legal system. On several occasions outside court in Singapore and while they were back in the US, Mary Todd, Shane's mother had said that "they had lost trust in the Singapore’s legal system", calling it "corrupt" and that she felt the outcome was "predetermined". In fact, I believe that even before the Todd family ever stepped into Singapore, they had already lost faith in the island's legal system. Can anyone blame them?

Anyone taking the trouble to do any research into the Singaporean legal system, which I am sure the Todd family did before landing in the island, would have discovered that it was corrupt to the core. You don't have judges in Singapore; you have kangaroos, eagerly waiting for orders from the Lee Kuan Yew family as to which hapless victim is to be finished off next, by tailoring the law to suit the needs.

These are the facts.

Firstly Singapore judges are handpicked for their loyalty and willingness to serve the Lees. Second there are no jury trials; these handpicked judges decide your guilt or innocence. Third, from the 1970s till today you will see a series of cases against Lee's political opponents, all of them jailed, bankrupted and impoverished. Fourth you will see a series of cases against foreign newspapers accused of defaming them, and all of them, without a single exception, fined hundreds of thousands of dollars. Five, in the entire history of the island, the Lee's or his handpicked Ministers have not lost a single court case; how could they with these Kangaroo judges. If this dismal track record is not enough to cast doubt in anyone's mind as to the independence of their courts, he must not only be blind but dumb as well. The American Todd family was neither blind nor dumb which is why they had immediately suspected the impartiality of their Singaporean court.  

And if they had taken the trouble to read a little more, which I am sure they did, they would also have discovered that despite the Constitution of the island which states otherwise, it has no freedom of speech, expression, assembly or any other human right which anyone elsewhere would have taken for granted. It is a highly regimented society where everyone goes around like robots.

And the fact that the island has no strikes for the last 10 decades, not a single one, would surely lead to some suspicion. Surely Singaporeans workers are not happy all the time, unless they were permanently on some form of soma or they were smoking something! The island also has no independent newspapers or media, they are all state controlled. Until yesterday, the Internet being the only form of mass information available has also been silenced. Now you are only allowed to say what pleases them, or else end up being fined $50,000 or worse in jail.

No doubt at all, Singapore has a very bad reputation as a one party police state run principally by the Lee Kuan Yew family and a handful of ass lickers who do his bidding.

A reputation such as this is disastrous for any country, let alone a tiny island with a fast diminishing local population of just 2.5 million with another 2.5 million foreigners who work there temporarily.

For one, it makes locals who are capable of leaving for settlement abroad, leave. Who, with any brains and any ability would want to be a push over in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore? This hurts the country. Tiny Singapore needs capable people to live and work and be proud of the island; whereas the bad reputation it has pushes it’s own away. If Singapore’s greatest need as an island without resources is it's human capital, this is where it hurts the most.

Singapore needs investment which it will find hard in getting. Foreign countries invest in places which they can trust. A good and law abiding legal system with an independent judiciary, freedom of speech and expression and transparency in their dealings are crucial elements that countries look for in investing. Yesterday I was reading in the local press that Chinese businessmen have invested millions to develop the Oakland, California seafront for business and tourism. When asked why they chose Oakland, they said, they can trust the US system of law and government. You have an open society where opinions are freely exchanged without fear and a court system which respects the rule of law. Which is why an investor would be willing to invest in a system such as the US and worry about a "corrupt" legal system like Singapore which may not honor their contracts.

Even investors looking for low taxation jurisdictions would prefer anytime to put their money in European and American jurisdictions rather than Singapore simply because they can be trusted while you cannot trust Singapore, under the rule of one man and his son.

Skilled and intelligent workers shun Singapore Island as a stupid country which bans chewing gum and beats its people to punish them. I have seen a lot of people who want to come to the USA but not anyone for Singapore. If it does get any, it is the dull spiritless sort lacking confidence or any grey matter. For Singapore, these poor quality robot like dumb workers who are quite willing to call life under a dictatorship home, can only impede progress and competition, and not advance it.

In the 1960s when there was no Internet, Lee Kuan Yew could hoodwink the rest of the world into thinking the island was some sort of a miracle by simply churning out propaganda. But for the last 30 years the Internet has put a stop to Lee Kuan Yew's subterfuge, cunning and make believe. The fact that the island is nothing but a one party police state controlled is out of the bottle and you simply can't put it back.

As Europe and America with their proud civil society, transparency and the rule of law advances, Singapore will even more be the butt of jokes of people being caned for chewing gum or an Alice in Wonderland with the death penalty.

No, it is simply stupid to run a country through Kangaroo judges delivering verdicts that you like, controlling the press and suing detractors for defamation of character. It gives the country a bad name and it runs it down.

Even Mother Nature acts against Singapore. Islands close to the Equator like Singapore, which are under increasingly warming sea water temperature, with the fast melting polar ice sheets means ever more rising sea levels and ever more frequency of flooding. This is already happening there today. Only that it will get much worse. Moreover the opening of the arctic sea route due to ice melt means that inter-continental shipping can now pass through the Arctic Circle obviating the need to pass through Singapore; another loss for Lee Kuan Yew’s island.  

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore island state controlled newspaper Straits Times publishes absolute rubbish.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

In Singapore island state controlled newspaper the Straits Times of May 31, 2013, there is an article "Retired Couple found an ideal home in Iskandar"  See http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/money/story/retired-couple-found-ideal-home-iskandar-20130531

It also carries a photo of an elderly couple, whose names are Max Hoenegger and Noarma Hoenegger, names which I have never heard of, who it seems were formerly from Switzerland and Singapore, but later got married in Australia, then bought a house in South Africa but left because of the crime and then settled in Malaysia.

And all this with a large picture of themselves seated in a sofa has not only been published in Singapore’s so called premium newspaper which happens to be state controlled (they all are), it has been prominently displayed as headlines!

Now will anyone tell me why this story of this Honeggers, whom no one has heard about, least of all me, should be considered newsworthy, let alone headline news? Surely it would not have mattered in the least to anyone had the Honeggers had lived in Jakarta, then Kobe Japan and then bought a house in France or Timbuktoo or anywhere else for that matter! Surely it is of no concern to me and no concern to anyone else, and good luck to the Hoeneggers.

Of course it would have made an difference if Mr. Hoenegger has successfully managed a world record by standing on one leg for 48 hours non stop or he ran the mile in a minute, or had managed to reach the summit of Everest by walking backwards, but he hasn't done any of that either!

I tell you why Singapore’s Straits Times has wasted both yours and my time with news like this. Their quality has declined so badly, while international surveys have placed it no better than 149 down the list of countries for freedom of speech, with even Somalia doing better than Singapore, that all journalists with any brains or self respect have all left Singapore and you are left with dummies such as this who can't tell the difference between news and rubbish.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore tiny island will suffer for silencing Internet

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore island, with a tiny population, and equally tiny size, has recently passed legislation to control the Internet which contain criticism of their country. From now on any article in any blog relating to Singapore and which has a readership in the island will be required to register and pay a bond of $50,000.00 to the government. If they don’t like what you write, you may be asked to remove it, apologize and your license to publish revoked. In other words, if you write what they like, you are fine; otherwise no. Although at present it only applies to Singaporean blogs, it has been said they intend to extend it to overseas blogs as well, presumably China style, where it prohibits foreign Internet companies from reaching Singaporeans.

Quite obviously, this latest attempt by tiny, English speaking (or a form of it) Singapore must be the stupidest policy anyone could have imagined. If the Singapore government, principally made up of a cabal of father and son, Lee Kuan Yew, and a few cronies, thought that by preventing Singaporeans from reading what is being said of them, they could continue in power, they could not be more wrong.

If Lee Kuan Yew, his son the Prime Minister and his handful of bootlickers had any brains at all, they would not have come up with this.

Singapore is simply not China. China has one billion people, Mandarin speaking, do not have a history of parliamentary democracy like Singapore has and they could carry on even if a million of their people are offended by their repressive policies. After all they have another 999 million people left to carry on, thank you very much. In any case, being Mandarin speaking does not help vey much either, if you wanted to emigrate to the West.

Singapore has a mere 5 million or so people or so, cramped one on top of the other, out of whom half are foreigners. Why, because the English educated Singaporeans who have an opportunity to move to the West are doing so in the hundreds of thousands. Why, because they don't want to live in an island where 91 year old Lee Kuan Yew who is just about to kick the bucket has his son strutting around like a prize rooster denying his subjects, freedom of speech, expression, assembly or any other normal human right. Father and son simply cannot tolerate any criticism because they are utterly insecure and nervous that if they allowed you to speak your mind, they would be overthrown the next minute.

Although all other media within the island has already been effectively silenced through their attack dog police who take orders from father and son, and their Kangaroo judges who are waiting for orders to polish off the next hapless Singaporean critic by suitably adjusting the law to suit their purpose, the Internet has managed to stay critical and overwhelmingly so, albeit anonymously.

And just like jittery cowards as Lee Kuan Yew and his son are, they now decided it is best to silence the Internet as well, lest the criticism against them becomes so overwhelming that a thousand people have started to barricade their presidential palace and demanding their ouster.  

The fallout from censoring the Internet, is undoubtedly going to hurt Singapore’s father and son government, far more than they ever thought. The small tiny English educated population there has already decided to leave Singapore permanently and move to the West, not wanting to live in an island like zombies. And with this latest stupidity, the tiny Singaporean native population will get even smaller with even more leaving; leaving them a tiny minority among the foreigners.

And the quality of the foreigners you are going to get will naturally be very poor. After all what sort of a foreigner would want to come and live in Singapore and call it home; a place that does not have any human rights at all, and now not even the right to have your say in the Internet; a life completely under the heel of a government controlled by Lee Kuan Yew and his son.

If you are going to get anyone to come and settle there, they would obviously have to be dumb, dull and ignorant people who either know nothing of their rights or simply don’t care for it.

For instance any engineer wanting to work in Singapore will be expected to know at least something about his human rights, or he would be a very poor engineer indeed, since surely a university education should have taught him something; unless of course he has such low moral standards or self respect that he simply does not mind living like a coolie under a dictator. Good immigrants would be expected to have quality skills and a general understanding of the world and some self respect, which is not the sort who would choose an island like this. 

With even greater emigration to the West, with the local population shrinking ever further and being replaced by poor quality immigrants who are spiritless dumb and with a couldn’t care less attitude, Lee Kuan Yew's island is going to slip even further and further down the slippery slope into oblivion.

It will simply become a third rate island with third rate people with a very bad name, almost a comedy place, like some sort of Alice in Wonderland with a dumb father and son coming up with a stream of dumb stupid laws, which makes them and their people look even more stupid than they already are. 

There is another country with equally stupid laws, Dubai. But Dubai is different. It flows with oil money from their oil rich sheik neighbors and no matter how repressive their government is. The 20% of the population which comprises the local millionaire Arabs in Dubai have it so good, they don't care two hoots about the repression suffered by by the 80% of foreigners in their midst.

Local Singaporeans on the other hand almost have next to nothing in wealth and they don't have to tolerate this nonsense from their billionaire dictator Lee Kuan Yew and his son. If they can they will leave. And unlike Dubai's oil rich millionaire neighbors, the only ones who park their money in the Singapore money laundering center are millionaire Indonesian bank cheats and Chinese crooks with stolen money from their Communist China state owned industries.

Although Singapore may continue for a while with some transient temporary workers in banking and finance who work there for short stints as well as poorly paid construction workers from Bangladesh, Lee Kuan Yew's island can never hope to become a country that one can be proud of, with human rights and be considered a proud and upright country with some integrity on par with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Belgium,  Finland or Ireland. It cannot even have the respect that Hong Kong has, despite being under Communist rule.

One can be proud to call Australia home. Only a zombie would be proud of Singapore.

Gopalan Nair 
Attorney at Law 
A Singaporean in Exile 
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com 

Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore island feels the heat. Clamps down on Internet

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Finally the moment has arrived, not that anybody had ever thought it will not happen. Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state island has finally realized that the Internet has now become an imminent threat to their dictatorial rule over their helpless subjects. Realizing that if they did nothing, it is going to be their end sooner than later, they have decided to silence the Internet. See state controlled newspaper the Straits Times report "MDA rolls out licensing scheme for news websites" May 28, 2013. (MDA is a government ministry which controls media communication. It stands for Media Development Agency, clearly a deliberate false label, because it does not develop it, it stifles it)

http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/new-licensing-scheme-news-websites-reach-50000-people-month-20130528

In spite of the government's hopeless attempt to deny the stifling of free speech (not that Singapore had any in the first place), for the first time blogs who report on Singapore have to be licensed and may be shut down or required to take down blogs which they do not like.

It says
"From June 1, websites that regularly report Singapore news and have significant reach will require individual licenses to operate".

Whether your blog requires licensing depends on how many hits your blog receives, decided as at least 50 for 2 months, and also if the contents are primarily about Singapore.

Furthermore now blogs would have to
“Under the new framework, these sites must also put up a performance bond of $50,000, similar to that required for niche TV broadcasters".

The idea of this bond requirement is that if you get notice from Big Brother that your blog should be taken down and you don't, the Lee family will sue you in their Kangaroo courts and if you don't pay, they will take it out of your $50,000.00 bond.

And the rules for them to accuse you of breaking the rules are very broad. They simply have carte blanche. They merely have to show that”This material could cover content that is against the public interest, public security, or national harmony".

As to what they mean by "against public interest" of "public security" or "national harmony" is not anywhere defined. In the end, what they mean is what they say it means. What they are literally telling you is either shut up or we will close your blog and take your money through their Kangaroo courts.

After all this, what, with Kangaroo courts, no freedom of speech, expression or assembly, no fee trade unions, and now this, only a very dull and desperate person would want to live in an island such as Singapore.

By this law they are trying to effectively shut up the only avenue left for criticism, which was the Internet. Not that Singaporeans had any right of criticism in the past. Today the only criticism you see is the anonymous kind on the Internet because Singaporeans are afraid to put their names to what they write fearing Lee's Kangaroo courts. But at least they could do it anonymously. After this new law, even that is prohibited, because they can trace the authors of even anonymous blogs and come after you if they took offense.

It is not Singaporeans who will suffer from this but the brainless Lee Kuan Yew government. Already anyone capable of leaving Singapore for settlement in the West has already done so or is actively pursuing that plan. Now with this new law silencing even anonymous writers on the Internet and squashing even Internet criticism, they are literally ringing their own death knell. From now on, even more Singaporeans are going to leave the island, fewer babies will be born and those remaining in Singapore will be of the worst quality of human species imaginable; ignorant, spiritless and cowardly.

The Singapore junta is shooting themselves in the foot.

And by an uncanny coincidence, this blog "Singapore Dissident" is going to even more widely read, since, except for blogs from overseas, nowhere will you see any blog calling their courts Kangaroo. You know that these courts are corrupt as well as I, but no one within that island would ever dare say it. So if you want to hear someone calling a rat by that very name, you have to turn to Gopalan Nair and his Singapore Dissident.

The only reason why I can continue to say it is because to sue me they would have to contend with an American court. And there are no Kangaroo courts in the US unlike Singapore Island.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore's legal system takes an even further beating at the Shane Todd Inquiry.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore’s already damaged reputation of it's legal system took a final blow at the jugular today when the Todd's family walked out of the courtroom after saying through their attorney, they have "lost faith in it's legal system". Please see May 22, 2013 report of the island's state controlled newspaper Straits Times titled”Shane Todd Inquiry: Todd's parents say they will no longer participate" http://www.straitstimes.com/breaking-news/singapore/story/shane-todd-inquiry-todds-parents-said-they-will-no-longer-participate-

Their disgust at Singapore’s one party city state's legal system did not come up suddenly. Ever since the inquiry stated some weeks ago, the Singapore Judge, as they are accustomed to, was simply behaving as if they could do anything they want. But this case was somewhat different. They weren’t dealing with their helpless Singapore citizens or "digits" as Lee Kuan Yew, the Singapore strongman had called them. This time they were dealing with an American family with some clout, whose son was clearly murdered but the Singaporeans want it to look like suicide; and that makes a very big difference.

The Todds were complaining ever since the case started that the prosecution were springing new witnesses on them with no opportunity to investigate, the crime scene was altered and evidence removed, Todd's laptop computer was broken into and corrupted and they were not given sufficient time to work their case.

But the worst mistake they did was to choose a wrong candidate for suicide. Shane Todd was a 31 year old lively young man with a great career, a girlfriend and a new job waiting for him in the US after he quit his Singapore one. He certainly doesn’t look as someone who would want to end it all. Singapore government officials who certainly have briefed and instructed the judge in this case, since that is how it happens in every sensitive case, have mistakenly or more probably in their arrogance overlooked the fact that pinning the label of suicide requires a knowledge of the mindset of the victim. You don't do that with a young man with confidence, a successful career and full of life.

As it happens May 22, 2013 Singapore time was the last straw. At the court, Singapore had once again tried to spring a surprise witness on the Todd family, this time a French man who claims to have had dinner with Todd one day before he died, an account disputed by the Todd family. It seems that this surprise witness Luis Alejandro Andia Montes, only arrived on Saturday and was supposed to leave on Tuesday and therefore they could not accede to the Todd family request to have the matter adjourned to just one further day to enable an investigation into this man's statement.

By any standards, by this denial of a very reasonable request, the Singapore court has once again very successfully shown that it is indeed nothing but a Kangaroo Court, sitting not at the behest of justice but at the behest of Lee Kuan Yew and his one party government. Anyway you look at it; no one is harmed by giving the Todd family one more day. And any court with any grey matter in their heads would realize that especially since this case has attracted such international scrutiny, all the more reason to show the utmost co-operation to the family of the deceased to arrive at the truth.

With the Todd family now absent, and their lawyers discharged and no more evidence from the Todds, the Singapore government it seems will carry on with their opera with a carefully written script and finally arrive at their pre-determined verdict, minus the Todds. The verdict is going to be suicide, not only for the late Shane Todd, and pardon the pun, also for the reputation or the lack of it, for Singapore’s legal system.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore suffers from a lack of credibility over the death of American scientist Shane Todd

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore and the international press are now full of the Shane Todd death inquiry. Todd, an American scientist working for a Singapore government company involved in high end scientific program which also involved a major Chinese Government company was found hanged in his Singapore apartment in mysterious circumstances.

He was a young man with a girlfriend and future. At the time of his death, he appears to have stopped working for his Singapore company, had secured another job in the US, and was planning a short holiday before commencing work and in every other respect was the most unlikely candidate for suicide, which the Singapore government claims it was.

The Singapore government’s interest in making sure of a verdict of suicide is obvious. If it is shown that Todd was murdered, as most people believe he was, that will be the end of anymore American scientists ever stepping foot in Lee Kuan Yew’s island.

Todd's family have arranged for expert witnesses who are going to testify according to the post mortem reports that he had put up a strong fight against his attackers as shown by the bruises in his hands while the Singapore government, desperate to argue for suicide, claim that those injuries resulted after he was dead. Doctors have also categorically said that he had not shown any suicidal intention whatsoever.

The Todd family has in fact managed to push for a Congressional inquiry in the US to look into his death regardless of what Singapore finds.

Following these proceedings in Singapore, one cannot fail to see that people outside Singapore are having a hard time trusting anything that Singapore says. And it must be quite clear to a Singapore observer why this is so; because the outside world has simply lost trust in the island’s legal system and the independence of their judiciary. In fact most people outside Singapore would consider the Singapore judiciary to be corrupt and beholden to the island’s Lee Kuan Yew government, and one cannot be expected to respect any claim made by such a judiciary whose reputation has been tarnished and floored.

In fact Shane Todd's mother had herself told reporters in Singapore that she feels the legal system in Singapore is "corrupt" and that in her view the Singapore legal system cannot be trusted. With a disgraceful litany of  judicial decisions of the Singapore judges clearly available on the Internet it is impossible for their Lee Kuan Yew government which is now run by the son of Lee Kuan Yew, to claim otherwise.

Singapore’s judges reputation was soiled and undermined since decades ago, firstly with the abuse of the legal system through compliant judges to destroy Lee's former political opponent JB Jeyaretnam. Through a series of trumped up charges, JB Jeyaretnam was repeatedly punished through million dollar defamation awards meted out by Lee's handpicked Kangaroo Judges, resulting in Jeyaretnam being bankrupted and being sent to jail. He has since died.

Then we have more recently Chee Soon Juan, whose fault once again was only that he was Lee's political opponent. He too was repeatedly sued for defamation of character, bankrupted and sent to jail. However recently, rather mysteriously, Lee Kuan Yew has released him form bankruptcy. Chee however is no longer the firebrand that he once was and now merely writes his blog and appears to have given up his earlier belief in the need for island wide protests to bring the father and son government down.

In my own case, other than the earlier politically motivated actions against me since 1985, in 2008 while in Singapore, I was arrested and sent to jail for 3 months for writing a blog critical of his judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of her disgraceful judgment against Chee Soon Juan. I was also arrested for a made up claim while there that I had knocked on a police car and that for some inexplicable reason was behaving disorderly for which I had to pay a fine of $3,000.00. I was then deported from the island even though I was born there. Last year, I was also disbarred from practicing law in the island even though it made no difference to me since I live and practice law in California now. The problem that Lee Kuan Yew government faces is that all this legal system abuse is freely available on the Internet.

So any observer looking at these series of cases where the law is shamelessly stood on its head to serve the government's political ends can only come to one conclusion, which is, these judges are just downright corrupt, and willing to do anything to please their master.

And once it is found that a judge has acted corruptly, they will be looked upon forever with suspicion; because once judges are willing to abuse the law to please their Master, what guarantee is there that they will not do it again. So what guarantee is there that the Singapore judge now hearing the Shade Todd case will not once again abuse the law and claim that he committed suicide, which is the verdict the Lee Kuan Yew government wants.

It is puzzling why they failed to understand this simple fact, that once you are seen to abuse the legal system for your own ends, from that point the integrity of your judges is marred forever.

Truly, noone is going to believe anything that the Singapore judges decide on Shane Todd. And neither would any future audience ever believe in any future judgment ordered by these judges in any future case. Reputation once tarnished is almost impossible to recover.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

Singapore a police state, protests of any sort are illegal

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Despite the outward trappings of a modern city Singapore is underneath nothing but a police state, run by the Lee Kuan Yew family since the last 52 years.

Although it has a Constitution which when originally drafted in 1963 at the time of Independence with Malaysia and subsequently enacted on August 9, 1965 when Singapore became independent on it's own, had the usual guarantees of human rights in accordance with the Universal Declaration of the United Nations, the Lee government which has literally turned the island into a one party police state has whittled away every one of them leaving it's citizens no rights  at all. Any privilege which they have is entirely by license or dictates. If they have any right, it is because the government allows it, not because any Constitution guarantees it.

Section 14 of the Constitution reads

"Every citizen of Singapore has the right to freedom of speech and expression" "All citizens have the right to assemble peaceably and without arms" "All citizens of Singapore have the right to form associations"

But having said that, Section (2) of this section conveniently takes away every one of these rights. It reads "Parliament by law may impose on the rights conferred by Clause (1) (a) such restrictions as it considers necessary or expedient" "such restrictions as it considers necessary or expedient in the interests of security".

Now comes the laws that take away the rights in the Constitution.

Singapore’s Public Order Act Chapter 257A, 2009, an addition to Public Entertainment and Meetings Act Chapter 257, 1958 states in Section 5 (1), Subject to the provisions of this Act, that "A public procession or assembly shall not take place unless "the Commissioner is notified and a permit is granted" Section 6 reads "Notice shall be provided to the Commissioner even if "the demonstration is carried on by the person himself" and the meaning of the word assembly "a demonstration by a person alone"

In other words, even if you intended to stand alone by yourself somewhere and make a speech, you need a permit!

What this all means in Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore is that the Constitution of Singapore is a piece of thrash, worthless garbage. It gives no rights at all. Singaporeans have no right to assemble or protest even alone, unless the government gives them a license before hand. And throughout the history of Singapore Island the Lee government has not issued a single license to anyone!

To try to make itself look good, Singapore has recently set aside a small area in downtown Singapore called "Speakers Corner" conveniently covered with trees and not very visible from the outside, as an area where people could protest, once again, subject to several conditions. Under the Public Order Unrestricted Area Order 2013 and Public Entertainments and Meetings (Speakers Corner) (Exemption Order) 2013, the organizer must be a Singapore citizen, he cannot say anything about religion, cannot cause enmity or ill feeling against other races, the speaker can only speak in the four official Singapore languages (and presumably not in Outer Mongolian), and does not display any banner or signs.

No foreigner is allowed to speak or take part unless he had a permit. And under the Public Entertainments and meetings Act Chapter 257 Section 18, the Licensing officer can arrest anyone whom he suspects of committing or attempting to commit an offense.

And to make sure that the government can stop anyone, the police have a right to refuse permission for anyone to speak even at Speakers Corner just like that.

In addition, to make sure that they are completely shielded from public dissent, several areas such as the vicinity of Parliament House, the Presidential Palace, police stations, areas close to embassies are all declared "Gazetted Areas" which means no one is allowed to protest any where near them. Such restrictions are both redundant and an overkill since protests throughout the island are illegal anyway without permission (which by the way is never granted), because you need a permit to protest anywhere in the island.  

The government allowing protests at the Speakers Corner, by the way of course subject to the government’s complete discretion to stop it, is in fact useless in reality. For instance, if workers wanted to protest their unjust dismissals at Sembawang Shipyard, they would expect to do it in the vicinity of the shipyard at Sembawang because that is where they will attract the attention of both their employers and the general public. There is no use at all for them to protest against Sembawang Shipyard at Hong Lim Park Speakers corner about 20 miles away where no one would know what on earth they are on about! Yet according to the Lee Kuan Yew government of Singapore, these recently dismissed workers from Sembawang Shipyard can only do it at Hong Lim Park; otherwise they would be arrested.

Singaporeans should realize that they are living under a virtual dictatorship without any rights to complain whatsoever. It is natural human nature to protest an injustice. In Singapore there is no outlet for it. You are expected to simply take it without objection. You are expected to be a moron.

The hope of democracy is to place as little restriction of people's right of expression and protest because of the belief that a country benefits through increased citizen participation of divergent views, philosophies and theories, and that a conflict of ideas is a good thing which should be encouraged, not suppressed.

The Singapore government police state on the other hand is determined to suppress divergent opinions allowing only those who comport with their thinking, presumably because they fear being over thrown if dissent is allowed.

And with Kangaroo courts that will make any judgment or any court order to satisfy the Lee government, the reality in the State of Singapore is that no one has any rights to speak in public, assemble in public or protest in public about anything.

The outside world reading this must realize that Singaporeans who live in their island have to be simply just dumb to accept a life such as this; there can be no other word for them. No one with any self respect would be prepared to live like this unless you are dumb.

Unfortunately the level of education of those remaining within the island is pretty low. Most have no idea of such things as human rights and go about their lives hoping to be left alone while they are happy in return to leave the government alone.

Educated Singaporeans and those who are prosperous would know that this is not the sort of life to live. As a result most of them have left the island for settlement abroad and many are leaving as we speak. Of course, you also have the hypocrites and unprincipled characters who know that they are actually living as slaves but are willing anyway for the high rewards the government pays them as collaborators.

Foreigners coming to Singapore should be told what they are coming to, an island which the Lee government, literally run by the 92 year old Lee Kuan Yew who has appointed his son as the Prime Minister and their cronies and close relatives in high places, as if it was their personal possession.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com