|
|
|
SDP
writes to International Bar Association about its conference in
Singapore
13 Feb 07
The International Bar
Association, an organisation of legal professionals and bodies
spanning the globe, is holding is Annual Conference in Singapore
in October this year. (see www.ibanet.org)
Below is the SDP's letter to the IBA asking it to reconsider its
decision to have its meeting here.
15 February
2007
Fernando Pombo
President
and
Mark
Ellis
Executive Director
International Bar Association
10th
Floor
1 Stephen Street
London W1T 1AT
United
Kingdom
Dear Sir,
I am given to understand that
the International Bar Association (IBA) will hold its Annual
Conference in Singapore from 14-19 October this year. While I
would very much like to welcome you to my country, I have to
highlight to you some very disturbing developments that I believe
would concern the IBA.
It is apparent that human rights
feature prominently in the IBA's mission: "To
promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of
law, and to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the
legal profession worldwide." This is why it is so perplexing
why your organization has chosen to host its next annual meeting
in Singapore.
Detention without trial
Let
me explain. We note that the IBA's Human Rights Institute
was established under the honorary presidency of Nelson Mandela.
Disturbingly, we too have our Nelson Mandela in the person of
Chia Thye Poh. Chia was imprisoned for 23 years and placed under
city-arrest for another nine. He was released only in 1998.
Unlike Mandela, however, Chia was never charged of any
crime and was never allowed to defend himself in a court of law.
He was imprisoned without trial under the Internal Security Act
(ISA) which exists till today. In addition, he was an elected
member of parliament. Although freed Chia is still monitored
closely by the Singapore Government.
Scores of his
compatriots in opposition parties, trade unions, universities and
media were similarly locked up for various periods, many for as
long as 15 to 20 years and were, according to Amnesty
International, tortured and abused.
In 1987, 22
Singaporeans were again detained under the ISA because the
Singapore Government accused them of being Marxist conspirators
out to violently overthrow it when in fact they were helpers of
the opposition Workers' Party, members of the arts community,
social and church workers, and leaders of the Law Society of
Singapore. Again, they were tortured and confessions were
forcibly extracted.
When the then president of the Law
Society and former solicitor-general of Singapore, Mr Francis
Seow, moved to represent some of them in court, he found himself
detained for more than two months. He was subsequently charged
with tax evasion but didn't wait around to find out the verdict.
He now lives in exile in the US.
As president, Seow had
indicated that he had wanted the Law Society to take a more
active role in contributing towards the process of lawmaking in
Singapore and also to speak with greater intensity for lawyers in
the country. The upshot was that the Law Society is now barred
from commenting on proposed legislation.
The use of
defamation suits
The ruling Peoples' Action Party
(PAP) has also resorted to using defamation lawsuits to silence
its critics. Opposition leaders have been repeatedly sued and
huge sums of money have been awarded in damages. J B Jeyaretnam,
Tang Liang Hong and I have been on the receiving end of such
lawsuits, ordered to pay millions of dollars to former prime
minister Lee Kuan Yew and his colleagues in the party. As a
result, we have been declared bankrupts and barred from standing
for elections.
In my case I was sued in 2001 by Lee Kuan
Yew and another former prime minister Goh Chok Tong. I had
applied for a Queen's Counsel (QC) to represent me because no
Singaporean lawyer dared to take up my case. This is not
surprising given that president of the
Association of Criminal Lawyers of Singapore, Subhas
Anandan, had indicated that he would represent murderers,
thieves, and even terror suspects, but would avoid acting for
dissidents in Singapore.
The courts rejected my repeated
applications for QCs, insisting that my case was not "complex
enough" thereby leaving me without legal representation. It
then awarded summary judgment to the plaintiffs. Thus, not only
was I deprived of a lawyer, I was also denied of a trial. I was
subsequently ordered to pay US$300,000 in damages. And because I
couldn't meet the demands, I was declared a bankrupt. I had
already paid US$300,000 to another set of plaintiffs in another
lawsuit in 1993 when I first joined the Singapore Democratic
Party (SDP).
As a bankrupt I have been barred form
traveling overseas and my passport has been impounded. I am now
facing charges for attempting to leave the country without
permission from the Official Assignee. I was also prevented from
campaigning for my colleagues in the elections in 2006 and barred
from getting up on the stage for election rallies.
Another
suit, the most recent, has been taken by Lee Kuan Yew (now
Minister Mentor) and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong,
this time against the SDP and its executive committee members.
Again the case was awarded to the plaintiffs in a summary
judgment despite our filing of our defence disputing many of the
Lees' claims of fact and law.
The foreign media has also
come in for such action. The Far Eastern Economic Review
was recently sued by the Lees for publishing an interview it did
with me. Because it refused to apologise, the journal was banned.
Other publications that were targeted over the years include
Time, Newsweek, Asiaweek (defunct), Asian
Wall Street Journal, International Herald Tribune,
Economist, and Bloomberg News, leading the Committee to
Protect Journalists to comment:
State
control of the media in Singapore is so complete that few dare to
challenge the system and there is no longer much need to arrest
or even harass journalists. Even foreign correspondents have
learned to be cautious when reporting on Singapore, since the
government has frequently hauled the international press into
court to face lengthy and expensive libel suits.
The
entire local media in Singapore is owned and run by the
Government. In its latest
annual survey, Reporters Without
Borders ranked Singapore 146th out of 168 countries,
one spot below countries like Somalia and Sudan.
Because
of such defamation cases Singapore's legal system has been
repeatedly and strongly condemned by organizations such as the
New York City Bar Association, Amnesty International,
International Commission of Jurists as well as by legal experts
and senior judges across the world.
Crushing human
rights
The UN has repeatedly raised questions about
Singapore's legal system especially when it comes to the
mandatory death sentence for drug peddlers. UN Special Rapporteur
on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston,
stated that the mandatory death sentences in Singapore "violate
international legal standards" and are "inconsistent
with international human rights standards." In the recent
case of a young Nigerian man, Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi, Alston said
that the Singapore Government "failed to ensure respect for
the relevant legal safeguards. Under the circumstances, the
execution should not proceed." The Singapore Government
ignored the plea and hanged Tochi on 26 January 2007.
As
far as citizens are concerned, we are barred from gathering and
speaking in public places. When a group of four persons staged a
silent protest outside a government building in August 2005, they
were met with the riot squad and ordered to disperse.
The
four protesters then filed a legal action taking the Minister for
Home Affairs and Police Commissioner to court for overstepping
their powers (under the Constitution only five or more people
gathered in a public place with common intent constitute an
illegal assembly). High Court Judge V K Rajah not only dismissed
the protesters' application but also warned them that they did
not have the right to "picket public institutions"
because to do so would be to "question the [institutions']
integrity and cast a slur on their reputation." The
protesters were then ordered to pay the Attorney-General's costs
amounting to US$15,000.
My colleagues and I have been
repeatedly convicted and imprisoned for "speaking in public
without a permit" even though the Minister for Home Affairs
openly declared that "The government does not authorise
protests and demonstrations of any nature."
There are
seven outstanding charges against me and another activist for
speaking in public. We will be tried over the next few months.
During the World Bank-IMF meeting in Singapore in
September last year, 12 activists were deported and another 28
who had accreditation with the World Bank were banned from
entering the country. One activist, Wilfred D'Costa, general
secretary of the Indian Social Action Forum, was even
interrogated for several hours before he was deported. The
Singapore Government banned all outdoor protests at the
meeting.
Practitioners of the Falungong faith have
likewise faced these repressive curbs on freedom of speech and
assembly in Singapore. Several of them have been, and continue to
be, prosecuted for illegal assembly when they gathered in parks
to exercise their faiths. Jehovah's Witnesses remain
banned.
Homosexuality in Singapore continues to be
criminalised and their efforts to hold functions have been
repeatedly denied by the Government.
If all this is not
enough, the Singapore Government announced in December 2006 that
it was amending the Penal Code to increase the penalty for
various offences including unlawful assemblies.
Academic
freedom remains elusive in Singapore. This was the primary reason
the University of Warwick rejected the Singapore Government's
invitation to set up a campus here. The university had written to
the Government asking that its students in Singapore campus be
exempt from laws limiting freedom of assembly, speech and the
press, and to remove bans on homosexuality and certain religious
practices on campus. It also wanted its staff and students not to
be punished for making academic-related comments that might be
seen "as being outside the boundaries of political debate".
The Government turned this down. Imperial
College, London and the London School of Economics had previously
also rejected similar invitations from Singapore.
I
apologise for the length of this letter but I wanted to give you
a comprehensive picture of the human rights situation and the
abysmal lack of the rule of law in Singapore. Even so I have had
to omit much more information because of space constraints. But
as you can see, much of what is happening in Singapore goes
against many, if not most, of what the IBA stands and works
for.
For this reason and for the sake of the rule of law
in Singapore I would like to ask the IBA to re-consider its
decision to hold its 2007 Annual Conference here.
My
colleagues and I would be happy to discuss this matter with you
in greater detail. We invite you to send a fact-finding mission
to Singapore in the near future to ascertain for yourselves the
validity of the issues that I've raised in this letter.
As
Singaporeans are so starved of news that runs contrary to the
official stand, it would be remiss of me if I did not make the
contents of this letter available to them. I would also be most
grateful if you could highlight this letter to your members and
associates.
Thank you and I look forward to a meaningful
discussion over this matter with you and your
colleagues.
Sincerely,
Chee Soon
Juan
Secretary-General
Singapore Democratic Party
|
|
