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Dr Chee's travel
applications
Apr
06
World Movement for Democracy (WMD) 4th Assembly
Istanbul, Turkey
Sponsors: WMD
REJECTED
Apr
06
Free Expression in Asian Cyberspace: A Conference of Asian
Bloggers, Podcasters and Online News Providers
Manila,
Philippines
Sponsors: Southeast Asian Press Alliance
REJECTED
June
06
Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats (CALD) &
Alliance for Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) Annual
Meeting
Pasay City, Philippines
Sponsors:
CALD
REJECTED
Sep
06
Meeting of the International Steering Committee of the NGO
Process of the Community of Democracies
New York City,
US
Sponsors: World Forum for Democratization in
Asia
REJECTED
Sep
06
Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats Executive Committee
Meeting
Taipei, Taiwan
Sponsors: CALD
REJECTED
Sep
06
Book Launch of Dr Chee's ‘Political Myths of
Singapore’
Gothenburg, Sweden
Sponsors: Swedish
International Liberal Center
REJECTED
Oct
06
International Civil Society Forum for Democracy
Doha,
Qatar
Sponsors: Qatar Government
REJECTED
Nov
06
Liberal International Congress
Marrakesh,
Morocco
Sponsors: CALD
REJECTED
Jan
07
Community of Democracies ISC Meeting & the Asia
Regional Roundtable
Taipei, Taiwan
Sponsors: Taiwan
Foundation for Democracy
REJECTED
Feb
07
Political Party Management and Development Workshop
Jakarta, Indonesia
Sponsors: CALD
REJECTED
Mar
07
Working Group Meeting of the Community of Democracies
Rome,
Italy
Sponsors: Italy Government
REJECTED
Mar
07
Travel with family to Taiwan to see ailing
father-in-law
Sponsors: Relatives
REJECTED
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Chee
found guilty for 'attempting to leave Singapore'
26
Feb 07
Dr Chee Soon Juan was found guilty of attempting to
leave Singapore without permission today. He was fined $4,000 or
3 weeks imprisonment in default.
Dr Chee will appeal the
decision and the judge has given a stay of execution pending the
outcome of the appeal.
The matter involved the SDP
secretary-general applying for permission to attend the World
Movement for Democracy conference held in Turkey in April 2006.
As a bankrupt, Dr Chee had to apply for permission from
the Official Assignee (OA) every time he wanted to leave the
country. He was made a bankrupt when he failed to pay Mr Lee Kuan
Yew and Mr Goh Chok Tong $500,000 in a lawsuit the two former
prime ministers took against him in 2001.
When he went to
the airport on 1 April 2006, Dr Chee was stopped by Immigration
officials and had his passport seized. He was subsequently
charged.
During the trial before District Judge Aedit
Abdullah, the following were established:
Fact 1:
The OA's office admitted that even on the day that Dr Chee was
due to leave for Turkey, it was still considering his travel
application.
Fact 2: The Immigrations and
Checkpoints Authority acknowledged that there was no way Dr Chee
could have found out about the status of his application other
than to present himself at the airport departure gate.
Fact
3: Dr Chee received the OA's rejection letter only on 13
April 06, two weeks after he was due to travel.
Verdict:
Guilty.
Note: Since April 2006, Dr Chee has
made 12 applications to travel. All of them have been rejected.
This effectively places him under city arrest.
Opposition
figure fined over bid to leave Singapore
Reuters
26
Feb 07
Chee
Soon Juan, a prominent opposition politician, was fined S$4,000
on Monday for trying to leave the city-state last year without
permission from the government after he was declared bankrupt.
Chee, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, is an
outspoken critic of the Singapore government's political controls
and curbs on free speech, and has had several run-ins with the
authorities.
The opposition politician was declared
bankrupt in February 2006 after he failed to make libel payments
of S$500,000 to former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok
Tong.
When Chee, 44, tried to leave Singapore on April 1,
2006 for five days to attend the World Movement for Democracy
conference in Turkey, immigration officers at Changi Airport told
him he could not leave the country, Chee's lawyer Alfred Dodwell
said.
"We are very disappointed with the decision,"
of the court, Dodwell said. "It's a case where he has
clearly not taken any wilful steps in violation of law. It was an
innocent mistake on his part to think that he could leave."
Under Singapore's laws, bankrupts who leave the
city-state without permission from the government may be fined up
to S$10,000 ($6,536) or jailed up to two years.
Dodwell
said that Chee would appeal the decision. If he does not pay the
fine, he could be jailed for three weeks.
Chee has served
five jail terms since 1999 for speaking in public without a
permit and for questioning the independence of Singapore's
judiciary.
Most recently, he was jailed for over three
weeks after he refused to pay a S$5,000 fine for speaking in
public without a permit in the run-up to Singapore's general
elections last year.
Singapore bans public speeches
unless the speaker is licensed by a government official.
Chee's
party did not win any parliament seats in the May poll, but won
23 percent of the votes in the wards that it contested.
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