British author's arrest in Singapore 'not linked' to death penalty debate

To the casual observer, it might have appeared that the arrest of British writer Alan Shadrake in Singapore was related to the fact that he has published a book that is highly critical of the Singapore government's use of the death penalty.

But, the Ministry of Home Affairs has thankfully made it clear in a statement that such a conclusion would be completely erroneous.

The ministry reassures us that Shadrake's "anti-death penalty views are not the issue in these investigations; it is his violation of the laws of Singapore which are".

Shadrake, like anyone else, is indeed free to express his views on this important issue:

The Singapore Government's position on the issue of capital punishment is not new. Those who disagree with our position have presented their arguments and as a matter of principle, we respect their right to hold such opposing views, as we hope they do ours.

The problem was not his views but his alleged criminality (although the Ministry appears to have forgotten to mention that his "offences" are still alleged at this stage - he has not even been charged yet):

Anyone, Singaporean or otherwise, who breaks the law regardless of the cause he touts, will be taken to task. Shadrake is no exception - he cannot expect to commit offences and then assume that he will be exempted from being held accountable under the law.

I'm glad that's all cleared up then.

The latest updates in the case are as follows: Shadrake was released in the early hours of Tuesday morning, Singapore time, after bail of S$10,000 was posted. His passport has been impounded and he cannot leave the country. A trial date has been set for July 30.

British author arrested in Singapore over death penalty book

Alan Shadrake, a British investigative journalist who has just released a book about the death penalty in Singapore, was arrested at his hotel in the city-state this morning, according to government-owned Channel News Asia.

Shadrake, who last night attended a book launch for Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock, is being investigated by the police for alleged criminal defamation following a complaint by the government's Media Development Authority, according to the CNA report.

He has also been served with a contempt of court order by the attorney-general, CNA says.

Shadrake came to prominence in Singapore in 2005 after revealing the identity of Singapore's hangman, Darshan Singh, shortly before he executed Australian drug trafficker Nguyen Van Tuong in a controversial case that caused friction between the Australian and Singaporean governments (PDF of Shadrake's front-page article in The Australian here).

His new book, which has been published by a Malaysian company, was withdrawn from the shelves of one of Singapore's biggest book shops last week after the retailer, Kinokuniya, was contacted by the Media Development Authority, which controls censorship in Singapore.

The book calls into question the way the government deploys the death penalty, suggesting that justice can be less than even in Singapore. The government has shown little tolerance in the past for those who cast doubt on the independence and fairness of the judiciary.

I've written previously about the government's reluctance to reveal information about the use of the death penalty in Singapore and the reasons why it takes this approach. 

Does political censorship work in Singapore?

The above video of a speech by Lim Hock Siew, who was detained by the Singapore government without charge or trial for 19 years and 8 months, has been banned by Singapore's censors.

It is a criminal offence to possess or distribute the video in Singapore and anyone doing so could face two years in prison and a fine of up to S$10,000.

The prohibition of the video, which was prodcued by film-maker Martyn See, is merely the latest in a long list of acts of political repression by the government.

Both Martyn See and Siew Kum Hong, a lawyer and former nominated MP, have noted that the ban has generated extra publicity for the video and led to an increase in the number of people who have watched it online.

Although the film-maker has complied with the Singapore government's demand that the film be taken down from YouTube, it has now gone viral and is available on several other sites (such as the one above).

At first sight, then, it appears as if this latest act of political censorship is wholly counter-productive.

However, while each act of political suppression by the Singapore government seems mindless when viewed in isolation (from suing the International Herald Tribune to arresting activists for handing out leaflets), the medium-term effect of this constant, drip-drip of repression is to suggest that political activists are dangerous and to warn right-thinking Singaporeans against engaging in any independent political activities.

I would urge anyone interested in politics or human rights to watch the 79-year-old Lim speak about his Kakfa-esque detention.

He relates how, at one stage during his detention from 1963 to 1982, he was put before an advisory board of judges and presented with charge sheets that included a number of blank spaces.

He asked one of the three judges why some of the charges were blanked out and the judge told him that these were charges that were so sensitive they could be shown only to the advisory board and not to the detainee.

The government did not try to stop Lim making his speech, which he did openly at a book launch in Singapore last year, but feel that a straight-up recording of his comments is "against the public interest" because it  "gives a distorted and misleading portrayal of Dr Lim’s arrests and detention under the Internal Security Act (ISA) in 1963".

Why not let the Singapore public decide?

Malaysia seeks clemency for drug mule facing gallows in Singapore

Malaysia's foreign minister will write to the Singapore government to seek clemency for Yong Vui Kong, a Malaysian citizen who was given a mandatory death sentence after being caught while trafficking 47g of heroin into Singapore at the age of 18 in 2007.

"We sympathise with what had transpired and will do everything possible within our powers or diplomatic means to solve the problem," Foreign Minister Anifah Aman told reporters.

The intervention in Yong's case, which I have been following since attending an anti-death penalty forum in Singapore last October, seems somewhat surprising (and rather hypocritical) given that Malaysia also employs the mandatory death penalty for drug traffickers.

The move follows pressure from Yong's Singaporean lawyer M Ravi, one of the very few human rights lawyers in the city-state, who has been working hard to try to save Yong's life.

Yong's supporters argue that he was a naive, troubled teenager who had fallen in with the wrong crowd at the time of his arrest and that he deserves a second chance given his lack of previous convictions and the relatively small amount of drugs he was found with.

Ravi also appealed on the grounds that the mandatory death penalty for drug trafficking was unconstitutional but that appeal was rejected by Singapore's courts. He is now arguing that comments made by Singapore's law minister have prejudiced Yong's final clemency appeal to Singapore's President.

Singapore has only commuted death sentences in a handful of cases and it seems extremely unlikely that Yong will be spared. Pressure from the Malaysian government may make the Singaporean authorities even less likely to back down.

Whatever the outcome, the campaign to save Yong points to a possible strengthening of civil society in Singapore. Despite the best efforts of a government and a government-controlled media that are not keen to raise sensitive issues like the mandatory death penalty nor to encourage campaigns against government policy, Yong's supporters have succeeded in promoting their cause at home and abroad.

The upstanding Malaysian who's spied on 1,200 couples having sex

In many countries, a man who had spied on 1,200 couples having sex would be put behind bars and added to the sexual offenders register.

But in Malaysia, which upholds Shariah law for the majority Malay-Muslim population, he is lauded as an "anti-vice volunteer".

The above-mentioned Malaysian volunteer, interviewed in The Star newspaper, said he was giving up his role after six years because he "cannot take it any longer".

The work certainly sounds demanding. Firstly, the volunteers go to "hot spots" where couples often seek intimacy.

"We listen for sounds of heavy breathing and kissing," he tells the government-owned newspaper. “We then move in and aim our torchlights on the couples. In most cases, they are caught naked.”

Rather than arresting the forniactors straight away, the anti-vice squad prefers to observe the couple for a while, not for any untoward purpose but purely "to get evidence for prosecution purposes", according to the newspaper.

As with the head of the Shariah police in the strictly Islamic Indonesian province of Aceh, who was angered by women wearing tight trousers through which "you can see the shadow of the vagina", you have to wonder if these moral policemen take some perverse pleasure from what they do.

A genuine slice of Malaysia in the heart of Singapore

I enjoyed reading Neel Chowdhury's account of a journey to Malaysia from Singapore's Tanjong Pagar railway station, which is set to close later this year following the resolution of a long-running land dispute between the two neighbouring countries.

As he puts it in his Time magazine piece, "the frigid efficiencies of the city-state fell quickly away as I stepped under the 78-year-old station's Roman-style arches."

The station, which is owned by the Malaysian government, is like a little slice of Malaysia in the heart of Singapore, which goes some way to explaining why its continued existence proved to be such a thorny issue for both sides.

With no departures board, no air conditioning and filthy toilets that you have to pay to use, it is certainly not an efficient travel hub. And the train journeys through Singapore, over the causeway and into Malaysia, are painfully slow and often delayed or cancelled.

Yet the station is one of the most evocative places in often sterile Singapore. I'm a particular fan of the 24-hour food court, with its plastic tables and chairs that spill out onto the train platform, the cats (and rats) that scurry up and down the tracks and some of the best teh tarik and roti prata you're likely to find south of the Johor Straits.

Singapore and Malaysia have much to gain by making it easier for people to travel between the two countries and the eventual plan to connect the Malaysian city of Johor Bahru to Singapore's MRT network could prove transformative.

But, unlike Chowdhury, who seemed put out by the quirks of the Malaysian railway system, I will still mourn the loss of the Tanjong Pagar station and its almost inevitable replacement by some identikit skyscraper.

The trouble with Asia's mega cities

If, as the Banyan columnist argues in The Economist this week, "the world’s hopes of putting carbon emissions on a manageable path depend upon on how developing Asia urbanises in the coming decades", then I fear we may be in trouble.

In developing Asia, governments of both the democratic and non-democratic hue claim legitimacy  through the promise that they will deliver rapid economic development. It is, therefore, hard to envisage these governments reining in growth in order to ensure more sustainable development.

Banyan says that "urban living can be greener than other ways of life", with the economies of scale created by huge population clusters opening the theoretical door to reduced travel, less energy wastage and lower carbon emissions.

But, the reality in developing Asia is less rosy. As Banyan puts it:

Most poor people coming to the city aspire to higher standards of living and consumption. Ill-planned public transport reinforces car use. Most striking, putting up and using buildings accounts for a big part of developing Asia’s carbon emissions—perhaps 30% in the case of China, where nearly half the world’s new floor space is built each year. What’s more, the buildings do not age well. Many thrown up in the 1990s are already being pulled down and replaced.

When I was living in Jakarta, I saw first-hand the embodiment of the filthy, polluted, badly planned Asian mega city. My next destination, Hanoi, retains many of the charms that have all but vanished from other major cities in Asia. Yet it too is under growing pressure because of urbanisation and rapid development.

In terms of medium to long term sustainability, the picture is bleak. But millions of people have been brought out of poverty because of the opportunities afforded by Asia's mega cities.

So can it be right to argue from the comfort of a city that went through its growing pains a hundred years ago (London) that Asia's governments should put stricter controls on urban growth?

The grim reality of judicial corporal punishment

In my last blog post, I argued that Oliver Fricker, who broke into a depot and spray painted a train in Singapore, can hardly be surprised that he faces three strokes of the cane.

However, I also voiced my strongly-held opinion that corporal punishment is barbaric and should be outlawed.

The decision to cane a Western white-collar worker like Fricker has already sparked considerable debate both within Singapore and in the wider world (as I've said before, few pay any attention when Singaporeans and other Asians are caned on a regular basis).

I'd urge the less squeamish among you, particularly those who support corporal punishment, to watch this video of a judicial caning in Malaysia.

The gruesome caning itself is perhaps less harrowing than the clinical precision with which the punishment is meted out.

Hat-tip to The Online Citizen for the video link.

Singapore to cane Swiss man after train graffiti incident

I wrote previously how Singapore was facing another Michael Fay moment over the case of Oliver Fricker, a Swiss national charged with vandalism and trespass after breaking into a depot and spray-painting a train.

Today Fricker pleaded guilty in a Singapore court and he has been sentenced to five months in jail and three strokes of the cane. Despite a number of not-too-dissimilar recent cases where errant Western expats were treated leniently by the courts, Fricker has not been spared the rod.

The powers that be in Singapore clearly believe it's better to send a message that such vandalism will not be tolerated than to pander to Western public and political opinion. Like many people, I believe the use of corporal punishment is barbaric and unjustifiable. Its continued use puts Singapore firmly in the camp of repressive states such as Burma, China, Iran and Malaysia.

However, it's hard to have much sympathy for Fricker's predicament, which is entirely of his own making. Anyone living in Singapore should be well aware of the hard line taken over transgressions such as this and the sort of punishments that the state normally metes out.

And while Fricker's case has attracted substantial coverage in the Western media, scores of Singaporeans and other Asians are caned in the city-state every year with few eyebrows raised except by human rights organisations such as Amnesty.

More illegal sand exports to Singapore uncovered

Singapore needs vast amounts of sand for its many land reclamation and construction projects and its eagerness to buy up sand from its neighbours has long been a source of friction.

Amid environmental concerns about the effects of sand dredging carried out on Singapore's behalf, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Vietnam have all placed full bans or partial restrictions on the export of sand (see my story in The Economist).

Last month an NGO called Global Witness published an investigation that revealed how river sand was still being exported to Singapore from Cambodia in defiance of a Cambodian government ban.

Now The Star, a government-owned Malaysian newspaper, has revealed that sand is also being exported illegally from southern Malaysia across the straits to Singapore and sold on to Singapore's Housing Development Board.

Campaigners such as Global Witness argue that Singapore's appetite for sand and its willingness to turn a blind eye to the way it is procured is causing serious environmental damage and undermining the fight against corruption in sand-exporting countries such as Cambodia and Malaysia.

In response to the Global Witness report, Singapore's Ministry of National Development claimed that it was "not true" that the "Singapore government seeks to import sand without due regard to the laws or environmental impact" in source countries such as Malaysia.

But the government, which likes to promote its credentials as an innovator in the field of sustainable development, noted that "the policing and enforcement of sand extraction licences is ultimately the responsibility of the source country".

It appears as if the Singapore government is (pardon the pun) burying its head in the sand, hiding behind the fact that the export and import of sand is done on a commercial basis and that it is the responsibility of the vendors and the exporting nation to ensure that everything is above board.

The Malaysian and Cambodian governments ought to be doing more to rein in the corrupt officials who are allowing the illegal sand exports to continue on such a grand scale.

But, if Singapore wants to be taken seriously as a responsible regional partner and environmental innovator, it must also step up to the plate.

The government may save money in the short term by buying in cheap, questionably acquired sand but it will have to pay the price in the longer term of supporting environmental degradation and corruption in neighbouring countries.

The slowly shifting tectonic plates of Vietnamese politics

Ernie Bower from the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C. has written an insightful analysis of the hidden nature of political change in Vietnam, ahead of the Communist Party's all-important National Congress early next year.

He explains that while there are rarely any overt signs of political change taking place in Hanoi, the real moves tend to happen slowly and behind closed doors.

He concludes:

The quiet in Vietnam belies a proactive subterranean political agenda. The good news is that Vietnam’s leaders are likely to move the country in directions that will enhance its standing and growth, strengthen ASEAN, and open the door for closer ties with the United States and other international partners.

His argument seems to be supported by recent developments. Vietnam's National Assembly, whose delegates are almost all members of the Communist Party, has long been a supine body that appeared to do little-more than rubber stamp government policy.

But in recent years, the delegates have slowly grown bolder and the volume of debate has increased. On the weekend, the National Assembly further enhanced its increasing importance as a political institution, voting down a major government proposal for the first time.

The proposal in question was a controversial $56bn plan to build a 1,600km high-speed rail link between Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, which critics argue would be costly and ineffective.

It would be going too far to conclude that the National Assembly's rejection of the proposal is a manifestation that some deeper democratisation process is underway in this one-party state.

But it is a sign that even when politics seems stale on the surface in Vietnam, the tectonic plates of change are often still moving underneath.

Paying for a piss: The true face of capitalist decadence

Like other football fans, I'm eagerly awaiting tonight's fascinating World Cup encounter between Brazil and North Korea, whose coach Kim Jung-hoon has vowed to "embarrass the Brazilian team".

This World Cup is one of the very rare occasions on which the world's media are able to peer into the black box that is North Korea. There have been some good pieces on the North Korean team and its Japan-born star striker Jong Tae-se, including this one in the LA Times and this one in The Guardian.

Both reports mention Jong's bemusement at the naivety of his team-mates, who are cut off from the rest of the world like most North Koreans. They refer to an incident recounted on Jong's blog, when the North Korean team was recently traveling from Switzerland to Austria and stopped for a toilet break.

His team-mates rushed out of the public conveniences upon discovering that they had to pay to use the facilities.

"Then they turned to me and said, 'This is truly what capitalist society is like.'"

 

 

Mahathir: Politicians who sue critics are cowards

Octogenarian former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad has hit out at politicians who sue their critics, after he was urged to take legal action against Barry Wain, the author of a critical new book about his long-running premiership.

On his blog, Che Det, Mahathir says that politicians must accept criticism from all quarters as it comes with the territory.

I am leery of politicians who sue their critics. I suspect that what they want is to make the issue sub-judice so as to prevent the critics from attacking them on the issue. This is a cowardly move and in fact proves that the criticisms are fully justified.

A  politician who is convinced of his own integrity and innocence should be able to fend off the attacks by proving that they have no basis in fact. It is up to the people, after hearing both sides to decide on the matter. Shutting the mouth of the critics by abusing the authority of the court of law is no better than Governments which censor or shut down papers which are critical of them.

I share his view that politicians who readily turn to their libel lawyers are often more concerned with preventing genuine criticism than stopping the publication of any supposedly defamatory material.

However, the lady doth protest too much, methinks. During the 22 years when he retained a tight grip on power, Mahathir was hardly a friend of press freedom, outlawing various publications and ensuring that the mainstream media was effectively controlled by the state.

Still, I wonder what Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew, a rival octogenarian political warhorse with a penchant for libel actions, would make of Mahathir's belated conversion to free speech.

Singapore faces new Michael Fay moment

Just over 16 years ago, American teenager Michael Fay was caned four times at Queenstown Remand Prison in Singapore after pleading guilty to vandalism.

The case thrust the tighly-controlled city-state into the international limelight (see Asiaweek story from 1994) but despite (or because of) pleas for clemency from U.S. President Bill Clinton and many other quarters, the government was unwilling to make any exceptions to its draconian justice system.

Now Oliver Fricker, a 32-year-old Swiss software consultant, may force Singapore to relive the Michael Fay debate after being charged with trespass and vandalism for allegedly spray-painting a train alongside a British accomplice who has fled the city-state.

Fricker has been released on bail and will next appear in court on June 21. If convicted, he faces a fine of up to S$2,000 ($1,424), up to three years in jail and three to eight strokes of the cane.

The case, which was the first time a Singapore train has ever suffered a graffiti attack according to the Straits Times, has attracted significant international press attention, particularly in Switzerland and Britain. It has also been big news in Singapore, where the state-controlled media has reported it as a major security lapse.

Fricker's trial will no doubt be closely watched, with particular focus on whether or not the judge opts to have the defendant caned if he is found guilty.

Stern Singapore has come a long way since 1994 and, although it still scraps with foreign journalists and human rights experts, it prefers to promote a softer global image these days as an open, creative business and leisure hub.

If Fricker is found guilty and caned, it would undo a lot of the careful international public relations work carried out by the People's Action Party-led regime, placing Singapore visibly in the ranks of oddball states. Swiss embassy official Peter Zimmerli said his government would not interfere in the case but noted that "certain punishments such as corporal punishment are foreign to Swiss legal conception".

Errant Singaporeans and Asian migrant workers regularly face corporal and capital punishment but the sad reality is that these cases attract little or no attention in the wider world.

A decision to spare Fricker the rod (if found guilty) would provoke the ire of many Singaporeans who already feel that Western expats get an easy ride when they commit such misdemeanours.

There has been significant disquiet on Singaporean blogs and message boards over recent cases in which Western expats (both Brits) escaped prison in Singapore for (variously) drunkenly stealing a truck and driving it down Orchard Road and stealing thousands of dollars from someone else's bank account.

It will be interesting to see what happens.

A tale of two city-states

Last week, I walked past a branch of DBS, Singapore's biggest bank, and was shocked to see a noisy protest taking place.

Ten pension-age men and women had erected a series of banners outside the main entrance and one banged a gong, while the others chanted slogans in Chinese.

What's going on here, I wondered. Even one-man protests are illegal in Singapore unless they are held at the heavily-monitored and controlled Speakers' Corner.

Then I remembered that I was in Hong Kong, land of the relatively free (depending on who you ask). The DBS protestors were demonstrating against the alleged mis-sale of mini-bonds, debt-linked financial products that were sold by banks such as DBS as safe, long-term investments but which were rendered worthless by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

I saw a number of similar protests outside other banks in Hong Kong. But, as far as I am aware, Hong Kong has not yet been brought to its knees by these bands of silver-haired gong-bangers and megaphone wielders, despite the grave threat to public security and societal harmony that they apparently pose.

Funny that.