Life in Singapore's political prisons

Officially opened on 20 Mar 2002, the ISD Heritage Centre, which took three years to build, showcases the operational history of the Internal Security Department (ISD). The Centre was built as a training facility for ISD officers as well as others in the law enforcement and security community in the public service.



Solitary confinement, beatings, electric shocks and threats to families - we're not talking about prisons in North Korea, or Abu Ghraib, but in Singapore's Whitley Road Detention Centre (same location as picture above) where such methods to extract confessions and recantations were allegedly used against political detainees during the 1970s, as documented by Amnesty International in a report published in 1980.

(lll) Methods of arrest, detention and interrogation

Through its Internal Security Act, the Government of the Republic of Singapore is endowed with extraordinary powers of arbitrary arrest and detention. These powers have been used extensively to detain students, workers, doctors, trade unionists, lawyers and journalists.

Arrest take place in nearly all cases late at night or early in the morning. The detained person is taken in a Black Maria to a Special Branch Holding Centre where he is kept in solitary confinement for 30 days' interrogation. The van might spend several hours circling the city before entering the interrogation centre through an underground entrance. The main Special Branch Interrogation Centre in Singapore is the Whitley Road Holding Centre. There are however other undisclosed Special Branch Centres. In most cases the interrogated person does not know where he is being held. Throughout the 30 days' interrogation the prisoner is not allowed access to a lawyer and in most cases is forbidden visits from his family contrary to the provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners. Indeed, frequently the family is not even informed of the arrest. The only human contact the detainee enjoys is with his interrogators. It is a matter of routine that all prisoners undergoing interrogation are denied such elementary necessities as spectacles, watch, soap, comb and towel.

On arrival at the centre the arrested person is forced to change into criminal prisoner's clothing and then taken directly to his cell, or in some cases, to the interrogation room. The cells are walled rooms, often underground, approximately 5' by 7' by 10' high with no windows and completely inadequate ventilation. Many ex-detainees complain of their cells being infested with mosquitoes. There are no blankets, mattress or pillows in the cell and the bed consists of a concrete coffin-like block, sometimes covered with wooden planks. Those prisoners who have been provided with blankets and mattress at a later stage of their detention complain of them being insect-infested and urine stained.

The lighting too is designed to increase the prisoner's discomfort. In most cases there is only a single 5-watt bulb kept burning 24 hours a day, so dim, in the words of one ex-detainee that 'I could barely see the lines on my hands'. In other cases a neon light is kept burning 24 hours a day in the cell. No reading material is allowed and detainees are forbidden to write to their relatives during interrogation. Even singing and speaking is forbidden in the cells. The sense of isolation and deprivation felt by the prisoner is enhanced by the Singapore Government's policy of recruiting Gurkha mercenary troops from Nepal as guards at both the Whitley Road Holding Centre and at the Moon Crescent Detention Centre. The Gurkhas speak neither Chinese, the first language of most of the detainees, nor Malay, and speak little English.

During the 30 days a detained person is held under Section 74, his routine alternates between long spells spent in solitary confinement and rigorous interrogation that may continue for as long as 72 hours, and in a few cases even longer. The interrogation is carried out by teams of interrogators who subject the detainee to a constant and merciless cross-examination that in many cases has led to mental breakdown and/or the ritual 'confession' sought by the Government. Amnesty International has established that prisoners have been subjected to serious ill-treatment and torture during this period.

The interrogation room is usually air-conditioned to a temperature of 50 degrees Fahrenheit and even higher in the hot and humid underground cells. 'X' is an ex-detainee interviewed by Amnesty International who was subjected to 72 hours' continuous interrogation after her arrest in 1977:

'The cold was indescribable. The Special Branch officers wore woollen jumpers and thick jackets. I thought I would never stop shivering. Indeed at one point I thought my heart was going to burst. By the third day, my lips had become very cracked with the cold. My watch had been taken away and I had no idea what time of day or night it was. It was like being in a nightmare. The worst thing was not knowing what would happen next.'

'I had a feeling after a while of extreme exhaustion. You were deprived of everything. Prisoners are forbidden to sing or talk in their cells. I tried to remember poems that I had learned at school and scolded myself that I could remember so few. It is the complete lack of contact with anything or anybody in the outside world that is so unbearable. I remember distinctly one unforgettable incident that I am sure kept me going during my detention. I had called the guard to ask to go to the toilet, and for some reason was taken to a different one from the usual one, which involved walking through a courtyard. As we walked through it, I could see that it was late evening and suddenly a leaf from a rain-tree blew onto the path. I remember thinking it was some kind of God-send and feeling so grateful that here was something from outside prison. I picked it up and kept it with me for the remainder of my time there. I can never convey how much that one thing meant.'

The complete isolation and deprivation that solitary confinement necessarily entail, combined with the long periods of interrogation, have an extremely debilitating effect on many prisoners. 'X' remembers again:

'The hours in the cell are very long. After a while, even the interrogation is something to look forward to because it at least breaks the monotony. It is a real effort to try and occupy your mind all the time. One tries to think of family and friends, and of songs and poems and of episodes in one's life, but after a while even this becomes difficult and pointless. There are moments when you think you will never have a creative thought about anything again.'

Other prisoners, particularly those from working class backgrounds, have been subjected to physical torture during interrogation. Beatings are all too common and a much used method of obtaining information is to continually douse the prisoner in cold water while he is being questioned in the air-conditioned interrogation room. In recent years, electric shock treatment has also been employed to torture prisoners, including female detainees. Prisoners in the Moon Crescent Detention Centre have from time to time been removed to Whitley Road Holding Centre for interrogation, where they have been subjected to ill-treatment and torture.

One case that has come to the attention of Amnesty International is that of Chai Chong, at the time of his arrest in 1976 an engineering graduate from the Singapore Polytechnic. During his interrogation at Whitley Road Holding Centre, Chai Chong was tortured by electric shock treatment as well as beaten several times. On other occasions he had filthy rags forced into his mouth and red ants placed on his mattress.

Conditions at Whitley Road Holding Centre have always been grim. The width of the cells in which the detainees are kept is only the span of a man's arms. The bed is little more than a cement block with, at best, some planks on top of it. Prisoners are allowed out of their cells for half-an-hour a day to go to the toilet and to wash.

Another detainee known to Amnesty International is Tan Kim Chong who was arrested on 9 April 1977. At the time of his arrest he was a worker in a textile factory. In clear breach of Section 74 of the ISA he was detained at Whitley Road Holding Centre in solitary confinement until 22 June 1977, more than two-and-a-half months after his arrest, before finally being moved to Moon Crescent Detention Centre. During interrogation he was frequently beaten and as a result lost several teeth. Yet another detainee arrested in 1976, Chieu Tuan Sin, also lost several teeth from beatings received during interrogation.

Ho Khoon Khoong, a political prisoner arrested in August 1976 and a construction worker by occupation, was likewise severely beaten during interrogation. He was several times doused in cold water and also had his genital organs beaten.

Pang Hee Fat, a detainee arrested in 1967, had his jaw broken as a result of beatings. He was released in 1973 but was rearrested on 14 July 1976, and was badly assaulted and ill-treated during his subsequent interrogation. He was questioned for periods of up to 12 hours at one time by a group of seven to eight Special Branch officers who assaulted him on numerous occasions. As a result he suffered bruises and vomited badly. Because of his ill-treatment he tried to commit suicide by banging his head against the cell wall. During one interrogation session at Whitley Road, Pang Hee Fat's wife, Wong Kui Inn, also a detainee, was brought in to see her husband being beaten. Wong Kui Inn was herself badly treated during interrogation and was subjected to dousing in cold water and electric shocks.

Some prisoners, as we have already indicated, have spent extremely long periods in solitary confinement. The lawyer, T T Rajah, was arrested on 20 June 1974 and spent the next six months in solitary confinement. He was taken from his home at 4 am by police car to the Central Police Station and placed in a cell. For the first 24 hours he received no food and although he is diabetic, his medication was taken away from him. The following day he was taken to Whitley Road Holding Centre where he was held in solitary confinement until December 1974. His cell measured only 6' x 8' x 12'. Ventilation was poor and there were no toilet facilities. He was not allowed to shower for the first ten days of his imprisonment there nor was he allowed exercise for the first months of his imprisonment. Periods of six months in solitary confinement after arrest are not unusual. Another known case is that of Chang Min Oh arrested on 3 August 1970. At the time of his arrest an active trade unionist and Chairman of the Goldsmiths' Association, Chng Min Oh, like T T Rajah, was imprisoned in solitary confinement at Whitley Road.

Solitary confinement and physical and psychological torture are not the only rigours that political prisoners in Singapore are forced to undergo. Threats are also made regarding prisoners' families and in a number of cases the wives of political detainees have been taken into custody. One example is the circumstances surrounding the arrest of Dr Poh Soo Kai.

Dr Poh Soo Kai is a former leader of the Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front) who was detained without trial for ten years under the ISA, from 1963 to 1973. On 4 June 1976 he was rearrested by the Singapore Special Branch. His recorded statement follows:

'I left my house on 4.6.76 morning and as I was about to enter my car, a Chinese man who had parked his car sounded his horn. Another Chinese man came, showed me his warrant card and told me I was under arrest. No reasons were given and I did not ask for reasons. I had assumed that they were arresting me because of the publicity given in the papers about me in connection with the expulsion of the PAP from the Socialist International.

Then my house was searched. There was a large number of men who searched the place. They seized some articles from the house including letters, journals etc.

Then I was taken to the clinic. There a search was made and they took away some magazines including 'Problems of Communism' which is an American State Department publication. I was taken by car from the clinic blindfolded. I was taken for an approximately 10-minute drive and then taken to a cell. I did not know where it was.

I was left alone for the rest of the day after I had been interrogated for about two hours.

Early next morning I was awakened about 6.00 am and after a wash I was subjected to day-long interrogation until midnight. My interrogators worked in three shifts. The room was air-conditioned and the cold was quite uncomfortable. This routine had been a daily affair.

They have taken away my watch, my spectacles and I am not given reading materials.'

On 3 July 1976, after four weeks' interrogation from 8 am to 12 midnight, Dr Poh Soo Kai was served with a detention order alleging he supported 'Communist Front activities' and was transferred to Moon Crescent Detention Centre, where he remains in detention. Throughout his four weeks' interrogation Dr Poh Soo Kai was denied access to a lawyer. Dr Poh Soo Kai has now spent 14 of the last 17 years in prison without trial.

On 19 February 1977 Dr Poh Soo Kai's wife, Grace Poh, was also arrested by the Special Branch and taken blindfolded to the Whitley Road Holding Centre. Mrs Poh was detained in solitary confinement for 27 days at Whitley Road before being released. During this period she was questioned and interrogated, for long periods of several days in one session, by teams of Special Branch officers in air-conditioned rooms. At the same time Dr Poh Soo Kai, who was being held at Moon Crescent Detention Centre, was informed of his wife's arrest and detention. This was done in such a manner as to cause Dr Poh great distress and concern for his wife's fate with the aim of obtaining a 'confession' from him and a recantation of his political views. Mrs Poh, for her part, had never been active in politics. Her arrest was not publicly reported by the Government.

Such practices are not unusual in Singapore. We have already cited the case of detainee Pang Hee Fat, who was beaten in the presence of his wife Wong Kui Inn. Similar cases have also come to the attention of Amnesty International. In March 1977 Francis Khoo, a Singapore lawyer who had defended one of the accused in the Tan Wah Piow trial, left Singapore after the Special Branch had arrested four lawyers, all of whom, like Francis Khoo, had been active in human rights work. After he left the Republic, his wife, Dr Ang Swee Chai, was arrested at her hospital by ten Special Branch officers and subjected to rigorous interrogation at Whitley Road Holding Centre. She was later released and allowed to join her husband in England.

The Singapore security police, the Special Branch, have combined a number of the above techniques - physical and psychological torture, solitary confinement and threats to families - to obtain 'confessions' and 'recantations' from prisoners in recent years. Amnesty International believes the responsibility for proving the guilt of any individual lies with the Government, in accordance with generally accepted legal procedures. The use of these 'confessions', obtained by methods described above, can in no way be accepted as justification for preventive detention.

The Singapore Government has in recent years established as a virtual precondition for release that a 'confession' be made by the detainee, often though the Government-controlled media. These 'confessions' purport to supplement and justify the accusations and allegations the Government has made against the detainee, including statements relating to supposed illegal and subversive activities. The 'confessions' often implicate detainees' friends and associates, are are used by the Singapore Government as a pretext to arrest these people. Moreover they are used by the Government to justify its widespread use of preventive detention under the Internal Security Act.

In May 1976 the Singapore Government announced that it had arrested some 50 'communist suspects' since January that year. This announcement coincided with a 'confession' of involvement in alleged underground communist activities made on Singapore television by Madam Goh Lay Kuan, a well-known ballet teacher. The 'confession' of Madam Goh was used by the Singapore Government to justify its contention of a 'communist threat' to the island republic.

This 'confession' was made only days before the Socialist International was due to meet in London to discuss accusations from other member parties that Singapore was violating human rights by detaining political prisoners without trial.

After Singapore's People's Action Party (PAP) withdrew from the Socialist International, more arrests and 'confessions' followed. Many of those arrested were journalists, others were lawyers, students and businessmen. They were detained under the ISA until they agreed to make public confessions. During the televised proceedings, they stated that they were members of Communist or Marxist groupings and had worked against the best interests of the Republic but were now willing to denounce their past beliefs and actions. They were then cross-examined by Government selected inquisitors.

Such 'confessions' must be seen in the context of the threat of lifetime in detention without trial, the pressures of solitary confinement, physical and psychological torture and in some cases threats to families. It is in this context that one must evaluate 'confessions' made by well-known journalists of prominent newspapers such as the Financial Times (London) and the Far Eastern Economic Review, which we will examine in part five.

- Amnesty International (1980)

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THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT

Political detention in Singapore : Prisoner case histories
The ISA as a political tool
Life in Singapore's political prisons
Surviving long-term detention without trial
Detention of journalists and lawyers under the ISA

The ISA as a political tool

The second instalment of a five part excerpt from an Amnesty International report, first published in 1980.

(ll) A political background to the use of the ISA

Since 1959 Singapore has been governed by the People's Action Party (PAP) led by the Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew. The People's Action Party, founded in 1954, was a broad-based political party espousing a socialist program with backing from the mass of largely Chinese-speaking unionized labour in Singapore, but also from the English-educated Singapore Chinese intelligentsia. This coalition was however always fragile and tensions occurred between the two wings of the party, particularly as the British, who were responsible for internal security until 1963, did not hesitate to detain without trial the more militant and left-wing nationalists within the PAP. In 1959 the PAP won the general elections and Lee Kuan Yew became Prime Minister.

Two years later, in 1961, the left-wing of the People's Action Party, led by Lim Chin Siong, broke away, and established its own party, the Barisan Sosialis (Socialist Front). The Singapore government has repeatedly alleged that those who broke away were pro-communist but it is of interest to note that 80% of the PAP membership are estimated to have left the party at this time.* Soon after the split an agreement was announced, in August 1961, for the future merger of Singapore and Malaya. The Barisan Sosialis opposed merger and sought to test its strength in elections to be held in 1963.

( * ref. Pang Cheng Lian, Singapore's People's Action Party, Oxford University Press, Singapore 1971, pp 14-15; T J S George, Lee Kuan Yew's Singapore, Andre Deutsch, 1973, London, pp 62-63)

On the morning of 2 February 1963, however, the Singapore security authorities arrested 133 persons who were active in the anti-government opposition and who opposed merger with Malaya. Among those arrested were leaders of the Barisan Sosialis including Lim Chin Siong and Dr Lim Hock Siew as well as newspaper editors, trade unionists and university students. Despite this the Barisan was still able to obtain 33.5% of the votes in the 1963 elections, against the PAP's 46.9%.

Singapore's participation in the Federation of Malaysia was shortlived, as indeed the Barisan Sosialis leaders predicted, and in August 1965 Singapore left the Federation to become an independent republic. The Barisan leaders and other opposition figures arrested in 'Operation Coldstore' were however to remain in detention without trial under the Internal Security Act for many years to come. The Barisan leader, Lim Chin Siong, was released in 1969, after spending many years in solitary confinement. Reportedly administered drugs which intensified depression, Lim Chin Siong left prison and went into exile in England.

Whilst the bulk of the 'Coldstore' detainees were released in the late 60s and early 1970s, five men remained in prison in 1978 who had been arrested in 1963. The five were Dr Lim Hock Siew, Dr Poh Soo Kai, Lee Tse Tong, Ho Piao and Said Zahari. All five have consistently refused to make the ritual 'confession' that the Singapore government insists upon as a precondition of their release. One of the five, Dr Poh Soo Kai, was released in November 1973 only to be rearrested in June 1976. Two others however, Dr Lim Hock Siew and Said Zahari, former editor of the Malay-language newspaper, Utusan Melayu, were unexpectedly conditionally released on 18 November 1978 and exiled respectively to the offshore islands of Pulau Tekong Besar and Pulau Ubin. In August 1979 Said Zahari was released unconditionally and allowed to return to his home in Singapore. Meanwhile, Dr Poh Soo Kai, Ho Piao and Lee Tse Tong remain incarcerated in Moon Crescent Detention Centre.

Following the establishment of an independent Republic of Singapore on 9 August 1965 Singapore embarked upon an ambitious program of economic development which has brought considerable benefits and achievements to the country. It is internationally recognized that living standards in Singapore are second to Japan in Asia. The Republic's housing and welfare policies have likewise gained widespread international praise. At the same time however advances on the social side have been accompanied by rigorous internal political repression that has led not only to the virtual elimination of opposition political parties but also the emasculation of any critical thought in the newspapers, trade unions, universities and legal profession.

The People's Action Party, which has now governed the country for twenty years, has not faced any effective political challenge since the Barisan Sosialis' defeat in the 1963 elections. With the Barisan Sosialis enfeebled by the detention and exile of its leaders, no other political party has emerged to take its place. In the last three general elections the PAP has captured all the seats in the Singapore parliament.

The PAP government has rigorously harassed all dissent and any potential opposition grouping in Singapore. One of the chief instruments of this policy has been the Internal Security Act. From 1963 to the early 1970s the number of political prisoners in Singapore fluctuated between a maximum of 250 and a minimum of 70. In the years 1963-1965, arrests far exceeded releases, whereas in the late 1960s this pattern was reversed. New waves if arrests occurred in 1970 and in the period 1974-1976.

The approach to preventive detention adopted the Government of Singapore is both selective and sophisticated. When the Government has felt that it faced growing criticism among certain circles, it has often reacted by arresting prominent individuals in those fields. A variety of techniques are then employed to extract 'confessions' designed primarily to discredit those individuals. A number of illustrative cases may be cited.

T T Rajah is a well-known Singapore lawyer who was active for many years as one of the few members of the local Bar willing to defend political prisoners. In particularly, T T Rajah was prominent in the defence of political prisoners at Moon Crescent who went on hunger strike in 1970-1971. The detainees had been told by the authorities that they had to work, but the prisoners rejected this on the grounds that it was incompatible with their status as political prisoners. Several of them were beaten and they were force-fed with their hands tied behind their backs. T T Rajah was not allowed access to them and he therefore brought court proceedings by way of mandamus and took out summonses against individual Special Branch and prison officials who had allegedly beaten prisoners. It was the first time ever that such summonses had been issued. However soon after the court proceedings began disciplinary proceedings were brought against T T Rajah by the Attorney-General on the grounds of contempt of court. Several months later, on 20 June 1974, T T Rajah was arrested and detained for eighteen months without his charge or trial under the Internal Security Act. Following his release on 12 December 1975 he has been prevented from having any professional contact with political prisoners as one of the conditions of his release.

It is not surprising, given the facts in the T T Rajah case, that the Singapore Bar Association, unlike its counter-part in neighbouring Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, has not been vocal in the defence of human rights. Likewise the arrest and harassment of many newspaper publishers, editors and editors such as Lee Eu Seng, Lee Mau Seng, Shamsuddin Tung, Arun Senkuttuvan and Ho Kwon Ping has succeeded in achieving the Government's aim of purging the press of critical voices.

The Singapore Government has also tried to ensure that the universities not become centres of dissent. Until 1978, students wishing to enter university in Singapore were required to pass a political vetting procedure in order to obtain a 'suitability certificate'. Successive generations of Singapore student leaders have found themselves subjected to the rigours of imprisonment. Tan Kim Oh, a Nanyang University student who was one of the leading opponents of the introduction of these procedures, has been detained under the Internal Security Act since 1966. In 1974, Tan Wah Piow, President of the University of Singapore Students' Union, was sentenced to one year's imprisonment on rioting charges. In April 1979, Tan Teng Lim, a lecturer, and eight other past and present members of the Singapore Chinese Society were arrested. All except Tan were reported released in June 1979 after they had admitted involvement in pro-communist activities and 'recanted'. Tan Teng Lim, too, 'confessed' to links with the Marxist-Leninist faction of the Communist Party of Malaya but continued to be held in detention after his 'confession'.

In short, the very groups that have been forthright in public criticism of human rights violations in other Southeast Asian countries - the legal and journalistic professions, the churches and universities - have in the case of Singapore been reduced to the role of acquiescent observers.

Arrests in 1976/1977 of persons who had been critical of government policy regarding human rights has had the added effect of further intimidating public opinion in this field. In May 1976 the Government announced that 50 alleged communist suspects had been arrested in recent months. The announcement was made only days before the Socialist International was to meet in London to discuss a motion by the Dutch Labour Party that the People's Action Party should be expelled. When the Dutch Social Democrats refused to withdraw their motion, the PAP announced its departure from the Socialist International. More arrests followed in Singapore of persons alleged to be supporting the 'Eurocommunist plot' against the Republic. Foremost amongst those arrested was Dr Poh Soo Kai, a former Barisan Sosialis leader who had already spent ten years in prison without trial from 1963 to 1973.

The following year, 1977, saw further arrests connected with the PAP's withdrawal from the Socialist International. These started with that of G Raman, one of the few Singapore lawyers who had taken up the cases of political detainees. In a 'confession' made within days of his arrest, Mr Raman implicated many others in alleged plots against the Government including Dr Poh Soo Kai. Other arrests followed. 'Confessions' were made by a number of those detained, but it should be noted that none of these 'confessions' contained any substantive evidence of a 'communist conspiracy'. Indeed, an allegation made in G Raman's 'confession' that Dr Poh Soo Kai had helped an alleged terrorist, was later withdrawn. Nevertheless, Dr Poh Soo Kai remains in detention held without charge or trial.

- Amnesty International (1980)

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THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT

Political detention in Singapore : Prisoner case histories
The ISA as a political tool
Life in Singapore's political prisons
Surviving long-term detention without trial
Detention of journalists and lawyers under the ISA

Toronto-Singapore Film Festival

Go to http://www.tsff.org/

Some enterprising Singaporeans in Toronto have started a film festival to showcase Singaporean works there. And I don't think they are doing it on the behest of any government initiative. Just read the synopses of these two films (I swear I have no hand in the writings).

Speakers Cornered
North American Premiere
2006 : 27 minutes, English and Mandarin (English Subtitles)
Directed by Martyn See








Shot over several days in September 2006, when Singapore hosted the World Bank and International Monetary Fund Annual Meetings, Speakers Cornered captures the thwarted attempts of nonviolence activists to protest peacefully at Speakers' Corner, a park designated for those with the urge to mount their soapboxes - though, as per the Singaporean way, not without first securing police blessing. In Martyn See's latest film, the park's legendary status as a white elephant without clothes is cast in cold hard stone. Living up to its title, its seventeen chapters reveal that to be shackled in Singapore is no metaphor. Stunning and yet strangely amusing, the litany of oppressions catalogued in Speakers Cornered are nothing if not an embarrassment to Singapore. Singapore's authorities have seen the events that unfolded that week. Why shouldn't anyone else?

Zahari's 17 Years
North American Premiere
2006 : 49 minutes, English and Mandarin (English Subtitles)
Directed by Martyn See






Martyn See's second film, 78-year-old self-exiled journalist, poet and author Said Zahari reflects candidly on his seventeen years in detention without trial - the first time a Singaporean has spoken about the experience on film. In 1963, two years before Singapore's independence, security police detained about a hundred opposition leaders, political activists and trade unionists for alleged leftist and communist activities. The new leader of an opposition party at the time, Said was convinced that his arrest was temporary, given the backdrop of Singapore's turbulent struggle for sovereignty. He was wrong, forces having conspired against him. Look out for Lee Kuan Yew in a verbal cameo as a "political coward" whose founding father status Said categorically denounces. A trenchant and humbling encounter, Zahari's 17 Years is also one of the program's most poignant films.

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According to its website, there will be a preview highlights of the 1st Toronto-Singapore Film Festival in Singapore on Friday, February 23, 2007 (9pm) and
Saturday, February 24, 2007 (7pm)
Venue: Pitch Black, 63 Haji Lane (Singapore)
Tickets: S$8

Call Pitch Black at 63923457 or email crew@pitchblack.com.
Tickets will also be sold at the door. Hurry, seating is limited!
Filmmakers will be in attendance on both nights.

Political detention in Singapore : Prisoner case histories

Last week marked the closure of yet another untold chapter in Singapore's dark history of arbitrary detentions without trial. Ho Toon Chin, alias Ho Piao, a former detainee under the Internal Security Act (ISA), passed away last Tuesday in London from a stroke at the age of 70. Almost exactly 44 years ago to that day, Ho was arrested along with over a hundred activists, unionists and student leaders in a security swoop codenamed Operation Coldstore. Obstensibly touted as an anti-Communist sting, the mass arrests effectively decimated the entire leadership of the political opposition, particularly of the Barisan Sosialis, a breakaway faction of the ruling People's Ruling Party.

Ho was eventually released - 18 years later - making him the second longest-held political prisoner after Chia Thye Poh. Others who were detained for 17 years or more include Dr Lim Hock Siew, Lee Tse Tong, Said Zahari and Dr Poh Soo Kai.

Despite a recent assurance, no doubt a well-intentioned one, by a media academic that the ISA is unlikely to be used against political dissidents, the existence of the Act itself casts a long shadow of fear among Singaporeans. Today, very little information is publicly made available about past detentions. Even the website of the Internal Security Department omits any mention of Operation Coldstore, Operation Spectrum or any such politically-motivated arrests carried out over the years. Only two ex-detainees, Said Zahari and Francis Seow, have written autobiographies.

Upon further enquiries, however, I have manage to unearth a rare and rather comprehensive report, published in 1980, by an Amnesty International Mission to Singapore. As the report is 60 pages long and only available on hard copy, I will attempt to reproduce major excerpts of it here, in five parts.

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Report of an Amnesty International Mission to Singapore30 November to 5 December 1978
ISBN : 0 86210 002 X
First published January 1980Published by Amnesty International Publications










Part l : Introduction and a Selection of Prisoner Case Histories

This report is based on the findings of an Amnesty International mission which visited the Republic of Singapore from 30 November to 5 December 1978. The delegation consisted of an American lawyer who is a member of the National Advisory Council of Amnesty International's United States Section, Thomas C Jones, and a member of Amnesty International's Asia Research Department, Michael C Williams. This was the first official Amnesty International delegation to the country, but the organization has been concerned for many years with serious human rights violations in Singapore.

The focus of Amnesty International's concern regarding human rights violations in the Republic of Singapore since its independence in 1963 has been the widespread use made by the Government of the powers of detention without trial invested in it by the Internal Security Act (ISA) and the Banishment Act. Derived from the British colonial legislation, the two Acts have been used over the years to systematically curb dissent in Singapore.

Under the ISA and the Banishment Act, detained persons have no recourse to legal safeguards nor any opportunity to question the allegations and accusations levelled against them by the authorities. Furthermore, detainees can be imprisoned indefinitely under the ISA which allows for detention orders to be renewed at the discretion of the Minister of Home Affairs.

At least three men - Dr Lim Hock Siew (now exiled on the island of Pulau Tekong Besar), Ho Piao and Lee Tse Tong (both detained at Moon Crescent Detention Centre) - have been in detention without trial for 17 years, ie throughout the whole period of the existence of an independent Singapore and are now among the longest term political prisoners in the world. On 18 November 1978, Dr Lim Hock Siew and Said Zahari (former newspaper editor and poet) were conditionally released and sent into exile to the islands of Pulau Tekong Besar and Pulau Ubin respectively. In August 1979 Said Zahari was unconditionally released. Ho Piao remains imprisoned however. Amnesty International estimates that there are at least 50 persons are presently detained under the ISA at Moon Crescent Detention Centre while an unknown number of persons are detained at the Whitley Road Holding Centre, the main Special Branch interrogation centre in Singapore.

Although the number of persons held in preventive detention may seem small in comparison with many Asian countries, the Singapore authorities have used preventive detention ever since independence on a selective basis as a means of repressing and discouraging legitimate, non-violent opposition in Singapore. When the Government has felt that it faced growing criticism from influential circles, such as lawyers, journalists or students, it has often reacted by arresting and harassing individual prominent in those fields, and so reduced them to the role of acquiescent observers.

Amnesty International believes that the Singapore Government has employed a variety of techniques to induce mental and spiritual collapse, including the denial of medication to persons suffering from diabetes and epilepsy, with the aim of extracting self-incriminating statements which can be potrayed as 'confessions'. It is common practice in Singapore for the authorities to have broadcast on television interviews with or statements from political prisoners purporting to be 'confessions'. Such televised interrogations are, in the view of Amnesty International, never a substitute for fair, open trial. The practice of imputing guilt by such means, through media controlled by the Government instead of establishing the validity of evidence through normal legal procedures, violates elementary rules of law.

The attitude of the Government of the Republic of Singapore to direct approaches from Amnesty International has been generally unresponsive. In advance of the mission of November-December 1978, Amnesty International wrote to the Government of Singapore on 9 October 1978 requesting that its delegates meet the Prime Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, and the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Chua Sian Chin. Moreover, while they were in Singapore, the delegates made efforts to contact the Office of the Prime Minister and the office of the Minister of Home Affairs. The Singapore authorities refused all contact with the Amnesty International delegation. Requests to visit detention facilities and interview prisoners were also denied.

In February 1976, Amnesty International published a Briefing Paper on Singapore, a second edition of which was published in January 1978. In an interview shortly after the publication of the second edition, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew did not deny either that self-incriminating statements were required of detainees as a condition for their release or that extreme pressure was exerted in the process of obtaining such statements. Referring to five long-term detainees mentioned by name in the Briefing Paper, Mr Lee said they 'can walk out of detention at any time - and the others, too - by signing a simple undertaking that they will not in future, either directly or indirectly, help the Communist Party of Malaya (CPM) or any of its auxiliary organizations to overthrow the constitutionally-elected Government of Singapore'. Later in the same interview, Mr Lee acknowledged: 'all interrogations must wear down resistance of (detainees) by sustained psychological pressure, including physical fatigue, to get them to give leads to the next links in a well-established underground movement'. (Far Eastern Economic Review, 24.2.78)

The Singapore Government has repeatedly justified its use of preventive detention under the ISA and the Banishment Act by referring to alleged security threats to the Republic, in particular from the illegal Malayan Communist Party (MCP).

The MCP staged an insurrection against the British colonial government in 1948, commonly referred to as 'The Emergency'. This insurrection persisted for many years but came to an end after 1960. Singapore itself, since its independence in 1963, has faced no serious internal social unrest, apart from racial disturbances in 1964 and, to the knowledge of Amnesty International, none of those presently detained under the ISA was arrested in connection with these disturbances.

The Government of Singapore has kept in preventive detention individuals whose connection or links with terrorism or the Malayan Communist Party has been asserted but has never been proven in an open court. The Singapore Government has resorted to wide powers of detention under the ISA without a State of Emergency being in force. Detainees have been subjected to physical and psychological ill-treatment, including torture.

A selection of prisoner case histories (1980)
Ho Piao (Ho Toon Chin)

Ho Piao was arrested on 2 February 1963 in 'Operation Coldstore'. At that time, he was Secretary of the now banned National Seamen's Union. He is the only 'Operation Coldstore' detainee to have been held continuously since 1963 and remains in prison today.

In 1967, the release of Ho Piao and four other detainees was ordered by the High Court after they made a successful application for a writ of habeas corpus. The five were immediately rearrested.

During his detention, Ho Piao has undergone long periods of solitary confinement and has been subjected to a rigorous interrogation including beatings. In 1970-1971 he took part in a 100-day hunger strike in protest against attempts by the authorities to compel political prisoners to undertake forced labour. In August 1978, he was one of 12 prisoners removed from the Moon Crescent Detention Centre to the Whitley Road Holding Centre. He was placed in solitary confinement, broken only by long periods of interrogation. On April 1979 he was taken to an underground cubicle where he was tortured for four days. When he subsequently refused to accept the conditions offered by the authorities for his release, he was again beaten. He was moved to Changi Prison Hospital for treatment of injuries sustained during this period.

Lee Tse Tong

Lee Tse Tong was arrested on 8 October 1963. He was held under the Internal Security Act until November 1967. In that month, he was released after bringing a successful application for a writ of habeas corpus but was immediately rearrested under the ISA. He was then deprived of his citizenship on the grounds that he had no proof that he was Singapore-born. In February 1968, he was served with a Banishment Order and transferred to Queenstown Remand Prison 'awaiting deportation'. Since 1975, when the Banishment Order was dropped, Lee has been held under the Internal Security Act. He has now been imprisoned without trial for more than 16 years.
A former secretary of the now banned Singapore Busworkers' Union, Lee Tse Tong was elected to the Singapore Assembly for the Barisan Sosialis in the elections of 1963. His case has been taken up by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU). At its conference in Caracas in 1979 the IPU passed a resolution urging the Singapore Government 'to release Mr Lee Tse Tong immediately and unconditionally'.

Dr Lim Hock Siew

Dr Lim Hock Siew was arrested on 2 February 1963 in 'Operation Coldstore'. The former Secretary-General of the Barisan Sosialis, Dr Lim was exiled to the island of Pulau Tekong in November 1978. Amnesty International continues to regard him as a prisoner of conscience.
In the course of his detention, Dr Lim has been at various times offered both release and exile outside Singapore. In 1972, he was offered release on condition that he made a statement saying he would give up politics and support 'parliamentary democracy'. He refused on the grounds that such a statement was self-contradictory.
In 1967, Dr Lim and four others successfully applied for a writ of habeas corpus. The High Court granted the writ and ordered the release on the technical ground that the detainees' detention orders had not been signed by the President. The five were immediately rearrested under the Internal Security Act. Dr Lim was held in Moon Crescent Detention Centre until his 'release' to Pulau Tekong.

Chia Thye Poh

Chia Thye Poh was arrested under the Internal Security Act on 30 October 1966 shortly after resigning from the Singapore Parliament together with his fellow Barisan Sosialis MPs in protest against government-imposed restrictions on the opposition. In July 1966, Chia had been convicted for publishing a 'seditious article' in the Barisan's Chinese-language newspaper, Chern Sien Pau, of which he was editor. In the same month, he was arrested with 25 others and charged with unlawful assembly for his participation in a demonstration against the United State involvement in Vietnam.
Chia was closely associated with the Chinese Schools' movement in his student days. As an undergraduate he was vice-chairman of the Student Union at Nanyang University where he was subsequently appointed as assistant lecturer.
He is detained in the Moon Crescent Detention Centre.

Chng Min Oh

Chng Min Oh was arrested on 3 August 1970. He was Chairman of the Goldsmiths Employees Union. He was held in solitary confinement for the first six months of his detention. In August 1978, he was transferred to Whitley Road Holding Centre for interrogation. While undergoing interrogation at Whitley Road, he was assaulted and forced to pour his urine over himself. In protest at these conditions, he went on a hunger strike. By late September 1979, he had lost 40 pounds in weight and both he and Ho Koon Kiang, another prisoner who had been subjected to similar treatment, were transferred to Changi Prison Hospital. Chng Min Oh later complained of multiple injuries including damaged ears resulting in a loss of hearing. In November 1978, Chng was returned to the Moon Crescent Detention Centre.

Tan Kim Oh

Tan Kim Oh was arrested on 4 July 1966 and charged with unlawful assembly for engaging in a demonstration against United States involvement in Vietnam. He was subsequently held under the Internal Security Act.
A student at the Nanyang University, he was one of the leading opponents of the introduction of 'suitability certificates' issued by the Government and required by all students wishing to gain entry to university.

Chua Kee Seng

Chua Kee Seng was arrested on 27 October 1966 and initially detained under the Internal Security Act. Although he claimed to have been born in Singapore in 1933, he was unable to produce a birth certificate. In February 1968 he was deprived of his Singapore citizenship and in August of that year was served with a Banishment Order. From 1968 to 1976, he was held in Queenstown Remand Prison 'awaiting deportation'. In June 1976, the Banishment Order was dropped and Chua was once again served with a detention order under the Internal Security Act.
At the time of his arrest, Chua Kee Seng was Assistant Secretary of the now-proscribed Singapore Commercial House and Factory Employees Union. He had also held various posts at local branch level in the Barisan Sosialis. He is believed to have been arrested for participating in protests against the Trade Union (Amendment) Act.

Lim Hock Koon

Lim Hock Koon, the younger brother of Dr Lim Hock Siew, was arrested in January 1971. At the time of his arrest, the authorities said he had been on the 'wanted list' since 1954 when he had been a leader of student demonstrations against obligatory military service. In 1961, the Singapore Prime Minister referred to him as a 'very high and important' member of the Malayan Communist Party.
Lim Hock Koon was held in solitary confinement for the first two-and-a-half months of his detention. In February 1972, after being transferred to the Central Police Station lock-up, he began a hunger strike in protest against his conditions of detention. Already suffering from stomach ulcers, he experienced severe kidney pains as a result of the hunger strike. The state of his health continues to give rise for concern. In February 1979, he was reported to be suffering from chronically high blood pressure and to have suffered a stroke which had left him paralysed down one side.

Dr Poh Soo Kai

Dr Poh Soo Kai was one of 133 persons opposed to the terms of Singapore's joining the Federation of Malaysia who were arrested on 2 February 1963 in 'Operation Coldstore'. At the time, he was Assistant Secretary General of the opposition Barisan Sosialis. He was released in December 1973, but was rearrested in June 1976 and is currently held in the Moon Crescent Detention Centre.
After his release in 1973, Dr Poh returned to the practice of medicine but at the same time continued to be outspoken in his criticism of the Government. He attacked the Government for curtailing the application of the rule of law and detaining political prisoners without charge or trial. His rearrest came shortly after the withdrawal of the ruling People's Action Party from the Socialist International. At a meeting of the Socialist International in London in May 1976, the Dutch Labour Party had demanded the expulsion of the PAP for, among other things, violating human rights by detaining political prisoners without trial. A Ministry of Home Affairs statement issued after his rearrest contained the allegation that 'Dr Poh has actively helped pro-communist elements, had established links for collaboration with similarly-minded groups abroad, and was preparing the ground for the revival of Communist United Front activities in Singapore.'

The Government also alleged that he had advised 'student agitators' and had supplied medicine to a communist activist said to have been injured by his own bomb while trying to assassinate a local factory manager. This latter allegation was based on a statement made by a political detainee which was later retracted.

In February 1977, Dr Poh's wife, Grace Poh, was detained for 27 days during which she was held in solitary confinement and subjected to a series of round-the-clock interrogations for periods of up to three days.

Chong Ming Jee

Chong Ming Jee was arrested in July 1966 probably for participating in the opposition to the Trade Union (Amendment) Act. An active trade unionist who had held the position of Organizing Secretary in the left-wing trade union federation, SATU (Singapore Amalgamated Trade Union), he was a worker in the Jurong Shipyard at the time of his arrest.

Chong Ming Jee was detained under the Internal Security Act and, after three months of initial interrogation at the Whitley Road Holding Centre, he was held at Moon Crescent Detention Centre until 1970. In that year, Chong, who was born in Malaysia, was served with a Banishment Order and transferred to Queenstown Remand Prison. After five years in Queenstown, he was again served with a detention order under the Internal Security Act and reurned to Moon Crescent. Chong was one of several prisoners transferred to the Whitley Road Holding Centre in August 1978 after engaging in a hunger strike. While there, he was beaten by guards and Special Branch officers.

Wong Kui Inn

Wong Kui Inn was arrested in July 1976. In a 'confession', she said she had acted as a courier passing medicine from Dr Poh Soo Kai to a Malayan Communist Party cadre. During her interrogation, she was subjected to torture with electric shocks and the repeated pouring of cold water over her body. Her husband, Pang Hee Fatt, was also arrested in July 1976. During his interrogation, Wong Kui Inn was brought in to see him and he was beaten in front of her.
_______________________________________

THE AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REPORT

Political detention in Singapore : Prisoner case histories
The ISA as a political tool
Life in Singapore's political prisons
Surviving long-term detention without trial
Detention of journalists and lawyers under the ISA

Singapore's cyber dissident speaks out

"You can express any view that you want, you can form a political party, you can contest the elections, you can have rallies, make speeches, no trouble whatsoever."
- PM Lee Hsien Loong, CNN TalkAsia, Dec 2006

Robert HO is Singapore's leading cyber dissident.

In late 2001, marking the first-ever case of its kind, HO was arrested in his home for allegedly posting "inflammatory" articles online during the General Elections. In 2002, following an as-yet-unspecified article(s) posted on soc.culture.singapore, police entered his home to serve him a summons to attend an investigation. Again, his computer was seized. Three weeks later, according to HO, he was forcibly taken to the police station by officers who entered his home without a warrant or a charge. In 2005, upon returning from a shopping mall where he had been distributing flyers alleging election fraud, he was again apprehended. His computer, purchased after the police failed to return the one seized in 2002, was confiscated. In all, he has been arrested another three times since 2001, and thrice the authorities had remanded him at a mental institution. Oddly enough, he has yet to be prosecuted for these alleged offences, although the criminal defamation case from 2002 may still be pending.

While critics, including international publications, have yielded to defamation threats issued by Singapore's leaders, Robert HO has instead emerged from his arrests and detention an even more recalcitrant heretic of the establishment. In Singapore's political cyberspace where fear of surveillance and libel suits have compelled dissenting netizens and bloggers to post articles under pseudonyms, HO sticks his neck out by brazenly disclosing his real identity online. He is now a regular contributor to the Singapore Review news group and is also a blogger.

Martyn See interviews Robert HO via email and phone in December 2006.

Have you always been a critic of the PAP Government?

Ha, ha. Nobody is born a PAP critic so I must have become one along the way. It would be true to say that LEE Kuan Yew creates his own enemies, through arrogance and unbridled power. I have written that LEE Kuan Yew is the 'most powerful man in the world or even in history' because he has so much total control over his entire population. You know as much, having been hauled up by his police, for essentially nothing. Doesn't that make you even more determined? Or changed you from pro-PAP to anti-PAP? Every time LEE Kuan Yew wrongs one person, he creates 100 critics or even oppositionists. If Dr CHEE Soon Juan had not been unfairly sacked from his university job, he would be there today, still teaching; and not a dedicated oppositionist. Power and abuse of power always create its own resistance which may one day succeed in toppling that power. Newton's Third Law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction."

When did I turn anti-PAP? Let me see. I lost my last job in advertising as a copywriter on 10 Jul 92. I was still pro-PAP then and still thought LEE Kuan Yew a 'great man' and all that, thanks to the Straits Times' unending propaganda. Shortly after that, I discovered that LEE Kuan Yew had been keeping me under audio-visual surveillance since I was a teen or even earlier and was releasing all this information to his entire crony system from Straits Times journalists and editors to even foreign journalists and politicos in order to embarrass me and as a publicity stunt [a kind of reality show before there were reality shows] purely to make himself famous, to self-aggrandise and to put on a command performance for the edification of his international audience, especially the Americans. Then I got angry, rightly so, and started to hit back. The whole story is more convoluted than this but this is the essence in summary.

In fact, before 1992, I had sent a few suggestions through snail mail [no pc then and the Internet was new] to then Prime Minister LEE Kuan Yew, suggestions ranging from redoing the National Anthem [which was slightly reworked subsequently] to a proposal for Block Managers to manage every HDB block much like a condo manager manages a condo; to developing Dirty Bombs [I coined this term and came up with the concept of radioactive bombs for Singapore's defence -- now it is a worldwide concern and probably only a matter of time before one goes off somewhere]. I also suggested to him that voting age be reduced to 18 like in some countries but that those below 18 also be given a vote, such that their vote be exercised by the mother, first, and for the second child, exercised by the father, and so on in the world's first truly universal suffrage. This idea was bastardised by LEE Kuan Yew years later [he never acknowledged any of my letters] as giving some privileged class of Singaporeans TWO votes instead of one, that is, the class most likely to vote PAP!

So from pro-PAP, I reacted to LEE Kuan Yew's shameless, self-serving puiblicity stunt telecasting me and my family live 24 hours a day, to anti-PAP. Then, I cast about for ways to react to LEE Kuan Yew's 24 hour a day live telecast of me and my family. I soon found a way. Mr LING How Doong of the opposition SDP had won the Bukit Gombak Consituency in 1991 and Dr CHEE, SDP Secretary-General, was serving as a manager in the Gombak Town Council. I started faxing suggestions to him. One suggestion was to do a political (actually, more a corporate) video, which he subsequently did but which drew a blanket ban on political videos from the kiasu PAP government.

I not only faxed suggestions to Dr CHEE but also to Mr J B JEYARETNAM who was NCMP from 1997 to 2001. Those were years of faxed suggestions. These suggestions could not and did not hurt LEE Kuan Yew nor diminish his power in the least but he and his ISD henchmen took the exaggerationism or kiasuism to the extreme and hit back at me.

Around 2001, I also started writing articles published on the Internet. I had bought a pc by then. The website is Singaporeans For Democracy, still accessible. I wrote some 61 articles published in SFD. ("RH: Robert's Almost-Complete Archive of Works") There were no blogs then, although there were Home Pages. One of those essays was to lead to the police arriving at my door.

In 2001, you became the first person in Singapore to be arrested for posting an article on the internet. What happened?

On 16 Nov 01, about 1115am, 8 serious, stern men rang my doorbell and came into my flat. They were ASP SOH Kien Peng, SI Jeffrey KUEK, SSS Simon LEE, SSS SEOW Chong Teck, SS TAN Soon Teck, SGT Eddie TOH, SS Leslie LEONG and SGT IRWAN. They quickly searched my entire flat, asked for my computer and took it as well as every single computer-related device from printer, floppy disks, CD-Rs, modem to cables. They then took me away to the CID Police Cantonment Complex. Being arrested and having all my entire computer system confiscated was quite unnerving and disconcerting. The handcuffs were locked on so tight I suffered a pinched nerve in my left wrist for weeks after.

At the CID, I was questioned for hours during which I dictated my statement/s to ASP SOH Kien Peng. In my statement/s, I described the years of radiation attacks from the flat above mine, from the time I lived in a 5-room HDB flat in Block 203 Bukit Batok, to my current Guilin View flat. I finished the statement/s around 1405pm, pleading Not Guilty in summation to the charge of posting in soc.culture.singapore my article entitled "Break the Law and get away with it, like PAP", posted 19 Oct 01.

Link to article

This article is also posted in Singaporeans For Democracy.

After my statement/s were recorded, edited and signed, I was taken to a cell where I was to spend the night on the bare floor. The next morning, I was driven to the Subordinate Courts where I awaited my turn for the judge to deal with me. The long queue was made up of many foreigners. Obviously, many foreigners run afoul of the law in Singapore and this could be one reason why the judicial system is so harsh -- they are mostly foreigners anyway and most could not even speak English. We accused were processed like an assembly line, with each one getting very limited time or attention. Singapore efficiency, if you like.

When my turn came to plead, I tried to tell the judge that I wanted to claim trial and ask for release on bail, since my offence is probably bailable, being merely a posting in a newsgroup. She was impatient, there being about 100 accused to process that morning before her lunch. I spoke into the microphone that she should not treat me on the basis of "once a madman always a madman" but was sent to IMH for observation anyway.

In IMH, the doctors see us about once a week, so it took about 3 weeks before the doctor assigned to me could finalise his report, which is "Fit for Trial", which is another way of saying that I was not mentally ill, that I could stand trial.

The charge against me was "incitement to violence" for asking voters to enter the polling stations without authorisation, just like PM GOH Chok Tong, Deputy PMs LEE Hsien Loong and Tony TAN and MP VASOO had done in the 1997 General Election and which the Attorney General CHAN Sek Keong [now Chief Justice] had refused to prosecute and who had written an unbelievable explanation that these 4 PAP men were not committing an offence, in his opinion, see

Unauthorised persons inside polling stations: Attorney General's letter

That this was a trumped-up charge, with very serious jail terms, is evident to all: if the AG deems unauthorised entry into polling stations by the 4 men legal, then my asking people to also do the same should also be legal, so where's my crime?

In any event, the Long Statement I made to ASP SOH, describing the years of radiation attacks on me, plus the biological attacks of putting virulent flu germs into our food/drink thus causing us [myself, my son and my little niece] to be very sick to the point of pneumonia, deterred LEE Kuan Yew from proceeding with the trial. So, at trial after I was released from IMH, LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen put on an elaborate wayang show in which the prosecutor DPP HAN Ming Kuang read the psychiatrist's report on me, but only the old historical parts and not the conclusion which is that I am fit for trial, to show that I was unfit for trial! Who would you believe the truth of my mental state? A DPP and the Straits Times or the psychiatrist who saw me? [I was told beforehand by ASP SOH that the charge would be dropped and that once released from court, I was to avoid reporters and leave the courthouse]. So I left the Subordinate Courts, collected my entire computer system back from the CID and went home without giving any interviews to reporters].

DPP HAN took so long to read all the old historical parts that the judge told him testily to stop, saying, "You can take it that I have read the report." but DPP HAN continued anyway. The next day, I knew why. He was reading, not for the court, but for the Straits Times reporters present. The next day's Straits Times carried a large report of DPP HAN's readings to give the impression that I was mad and that was why the charge was dropped. At that time, HAN Fook Kwang was Editor [now Chief Editor I believe] of the Straits Times. Note the similarity in names as in the Chinese custom of naming siblings or close relations. They are probably related and LEE Kuan Yew's henchmen, out to destroy my credibility, one reading copiously in court while the other took care to publish the read parts prominently. More attempts to destroy my credibility, and their modus operandi, are captured in this soc.culture.singapore newsgroup posting.

Barely eight months later, following two other online postings, the police twice visited you in your home.

As the above post shows, I was arrested twice more after that. One was on Wed 3 Jul 02 when ASP GOH Tat Boon, SI Kamaruzaman GAFFAR, Sgt IRWAN Abdul Rahman and S/SGT LEE Lioh Ying came to my flat to seize my computer again. Sgt IRWAN was the same man who came with ASP SOH the last time, so he went straight to my pc. I persuaded ASP GOH not to take everything, since everything had been seized and examined before and still carried the police sticker labels. So he seized only the pc tower. This has still not been returned today probably because the case is still not closed, I believe. This is the case of "criminal defamation" which carries a considerable jail term.

However, LEE Kuan Yew's enthusiasm for court cases against me had considerably chilled, since he realised that once in court and sworn to tell the truth, on pains of perjury, which is a serious offence, I would tell all about his publicity stunt light-torture of me, which many, including judges, would already know about and know to be true. Of course, he can still find judges to do his will and bidding but it would mean very personal interference from him and this could open him to complications since judges may talk, migrate, give an interview or even write a book or even a blog!. You never know. So kiasuism won again and LEE Kuan Yew never took me to court nor gave me a chance to testify in court for posterity.

ASP GOH simply stopped calling me or investigating my case and ignored my phone calls and faxes to him to return my pc tower. But LEE Kuan Yew was not one to leave critics alone. He had to tit for every tat. It's all kiasuism again. So, on 26 Jul 02, 2 non-ASP policemen came to my flat just as I was sitting down to dinner and arrested me yet again. They were Sergeant SEOW Chow Chin and Corporal Wandi. The entire police procedures book was ignored and I was handcuffed, driven to Jurong Police HQ and locked in a cell. Then, without even an interview with an Investigating Officer, I was driven to IMH where the doctor, despite strenuous objections from me, admitted me. Since doctors there see patients only about once a week, it took me 8 days to get out. I append a handwritten note I faxed to Dr CHEE Soon Juan of the SDP:

To: Dr CHEE Soon Juan, Mr LING How Doong
From: Robert HO

Recap: On Wed 3 July 2002, ASP GOH Tat Boon and 3 others came to my apartment to seize my computer and to serve upon me an Order to attend an investigation. Which I duly attended at the CID, the next day 4 Jul 2002 from about 10am to about 12.30pm.

It was a 'proper' seizure and Order served.

An 'improper' arrest:

However, on 26 Jul 2002, 2 policemen of low rank came to my apartment just as I was sitting down to dinner at about 8pm and arrested me.

I asked them "On what charge?" They did not say. I asked them for an arrest warrant. They did not have one. This is most 'improper'.

I had no choice but to follow them. They said they were from the Bukit Batok NPP.

I was taken to a cell in Jurong Police HQ and spent several hours there, locked up.

Then, without even a meeting with an IO [Investigation Officer], I was taken away to Woodbridge Hospital [IMH] at about 5am 27 July 2002.

There, I stayed for 8 days till my discharge on Sat 3 August 2002.

I know that under Section 32 of the Mental Disorders and Treatment Act; and under Section 43 [1] [b] of the Prisons Act, I may be detained in a mental hospital provided I am a threat to the safety of others or myself.

This is clearly not the case in my case.

So who ordered my arrest and incarceration in IMH? And on what charge? There is no basis whatsoever. I still do not know now.

Worse still, it seems that in future, this unlawful confinement may be enacted again and again. All it takes is for some anonymous order from somebody and I will find myself locked up and incommunicado.

It is a frightening power that has no safeguards or checks.

5 Aug '02
Robert HO

And more recently, in a case that I believe has gone unreported, you were arrested and detained for distributing flyers at a shopping mall.

On 27 Feb 05, I went to WestMall Shopping Centre to photocopy and distribute copies of a document alleging that LEE Kuan Yew rigged the 1997 Cheng San GRC election. I was arrested, locked in a police station cell [Clementi Police Division HQ] and then driven to IMH where it took me about a dozen days to get out, again because the doctors see patients only once a week mainly. This case closed with a formal written Warning on 20 Feb 06. My entire computer system, a new one from the pc tower ASP GOH seized, which is still with him, was returned to me.

Why do I keep getting entangled with the law? To understand this, you have to know, as many Singaporeans and foreigners already know, that LEE Kuan Yew had been lightly torturing me since shortly since around 1992. This consists of mostly [still ongoing and happening even now] sleep deprivation lasting from minutes [thereby leading to unrestful sleep on being awakened up to several times a night], to hours-long sleep deprivation. This is done with the CIA TWS [Through Wall Surveillance] devices, from the flat above. Why? Because, as one ISD man said to his colleague years ago at the NUSS swimming pool where I was with my family, "It's a power play". Sleep deprivation is a dangerously serious form of aggression. Lab mice denied sleep die after just two and a half weeks. Bodily organs and the immunity systems are also weakened, increasing the likelihood of cancers and other diseases.

Were you an ex-journalist? Where?

Hardly. I was a night sub-editor from late 1975 to early 1976 in The Straits Times. I went mentally ill around that time and didn't recover until 1979, the illness most proably due to the stress of doing 2 jobs at the same time [teaching by day] and not sleeping regularly or enough so the present dozen years of sleep deprivation light torture is potentially havoc to my health. None of my ancestors or family have been mentally ill so this reinforces the possibility that irregular and insufficient sleep is the cause. Once I was discharged from IMH in 1979, I went straight back to work and a normal life and have only had to eat medicine on an outpatient basis after that. Note that all the incarceration episodes of the police arresting me and putting me in IMH didn't last more than about a dozen days or so, except for the 3-week episode of court-ordered observation around 16 Nov 01. If I were really mentally ill, I wouldn't have been released in about a dozen days each time! The doctors would be too kiasu to dare risk their reputation in releasing a patient who is not fit to be released or who is still unstable.

In the Straits Times, I occasionally witnessed the 'Upstairs' control of news and I have written this in my "Letter to Blair" article, in my Archive. We all know that the Straits Times practises what they euphemistically call "nation building" but the main quarrel many of us have with this rigid and total control of the media is not whether nation building should be done or not or whether it is right for media to do this. There is a deeper issue and this is about Truth and Falsehood. Truth and Falsehood are often separated only by a thin line and that is why we talk about Half-Truths. In one of my quotes in my Archive, I wrote that "LEE Kuan Yew is adept at turning half-truths into whole lies" and it is not just a neat aphorism, it captures the fact that sometimes, very little separate a Truth from an UnTruth or Lie. So, the Straits Times should, like a court witness, always tell the Truth, the Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth. As an eyewitness to history. It is not about nation building but about Truth.

There is also the insidious effect of Time. If a newspaper suppresses a fact or a piece of news one day, it is not too bad. But when it consistently suppresses similar facts, over time, this becomes a total manipulation of the readers' mind. So, over time, even innocuous news suppression, or a slight 'slant' to the news, or a slight 'spin' take on huge dimensions in an unforgiveable attempt at nothing less than brainwashing.

How do you rate the performance of PM Lee Hsien Loong so far?

To understand LEE Hsien Loong's performance, you have to consider the advantages he inherited from his father and GOH Chok Tong and the challenges facing him. In a way, it is unfair to expect too much from LEE Hsien Loong because the challenges he faces today are the left over unsolved problems that his father and GOH did not or more likely, could not solve. It stands to reason that if his father and GOH could solve those problems, they would have done so already. So, many of the problems that remain for LEE Hsien Loong are intractable ones. However, every new leader faces the same situation, in every country, so LEE Hsien Loong cannot excuse himself for not solving them.

He faces another obstacle. His father. LEE Kuan Yew is even more active now than say, during GOH's time. There is a sense that he wants to set everything in stone, to so cast Singapore with rigid policies that long after he has become non-sentient, Singapore will still continue as though he is still in control, shaping events. Every person in power wants to shape his state according to what he thinks fit and LEE Kuan Yew is no exception. But the only way is to shape institutions, not direct policies.

If you shape an institution, that institution can go on to evolve policies to fit any new circumstances. If you cast policies in stone, policies are quickly outdated and become irrelevant or counterproductive especially so with the modern speed of change. The faster things change, the more you need institutions and not direct policies. So it is always best to leave behind strong institutions. What are some of these? Free and fair elections for example. An independent judiciary. A critical press unafraid to investigate and spotlight governmental wrongdoings. A Parliament of independent-thinking MPs that is not today's rubberstamp Yes Men. Cabinet colleagues of diverse backgrounds who follow very different Muses. An Opposition that is free to challenge the government's ideas and policies.

On all of these, LEE Kuan Yew has failed, failed, failed. He has corrupted every single institution in the land. This is his greatest failure. He did not have the wisdom to see where corrupted institutions will lead. He has created a system that needs him at the top to continue running. Once he becomes non-sentient, LEE Hsien Loong either becomes another LEE Kuan Yew, or he will find that One Man Rule or Top Down Rule cannot function. So, either LEE Kuan Yew reverses his entire life's doings or else he better hope that LEE Hsien Loong turns out to be close enough like him. But then, remember that LEE Kuan Yew has already solved all the easy problems and only the hard ones remain. Thus, LEE Hsien Loong will not have an easy time.

LEE Kuan Yew once boasted to a foreign journalist, "If people don't fear me, then I am meaningless." This has led other sharp observers to note that LEE Kuan Yew's rule is "...only thinly disguised Rule By Decree" and that he has imposed a "Fearocracy". Make no mistake, LEE enjoys flaunting his power and abusing his power to force 'solutions' on people, like the recent publicly administered 'breaking the head' of pilot Captain Ryan GOH by LEE who pointedly revealed some highlights of GOH's private family life.

LEE Kuan Yew ruled during a time when the world was simple and straightforward. LEE Hsien Loong now faces a far different world than the one his father lived through. My prediction: LEE Hsien Loong will falter once his father is no longer around. The elder LEE left not a single viable institution intact in his haste to dismantle everything that got in his way. Simply put, if you create a system where you must have a LEE Kuan Yew in charge to function, then the moment a non-LEE Kuan Yew comes along, even if he is a son, things unravel. That is why I say, leave behind strong institutions, not a strongman.

To answer your question directly, I think LEE Hsien Loong won't last long either through disease relapse of cancer or some such. God loves playing games, too, and has already given him an albino and an autistic son, such odds being many millions to one unless you prefer to take the simplest explanation that God, too, loves games! Take it as divine retribution for LEE Kuan Yew's unashamedly eugenics policies!

In this year's 2006 General Election, the PAP averaged 66.6% of the votes but in LEE Hsien Loong's very own GRC, he despite his cachet and his Father's dominating presence, got only 66.14%. This despite running against 6 neophyte no-hopers nobody has ever heard of and who the PAP boasted "will lose their deposits"! LEE Hsien Loong won't last loong!

You seem to display a particular affinity in delving into the psyche of Lee Kuan Yew. What is your fascination with the Minister Mentor?

I fought him for a dozen years. In those dozen years, I have come to fear him, ridicule him, expose his failings and wrongdoings, all of which are now in written form in thousands of postings in soc.culture.singapore and elsewhere on the wonderful thing called the Internet.

When I first began writing anti-PAP articles, I was careful about defamation lawsuits, now, I couldn't care less. LEE Kuan Yew, by committing crimes against me and my family members for a dozen years, has lost the moral right to apply the law to me since he has broken the law himself every day, sometimes even dozens of times a day, for a dozen years, against me and my family.

Nowadays, I have the luxury of ranting and raving against LEE Kuan Yew, restrained only by the facts and the Truth and my credibility.

Most still have to be careful but the Internet is spawning a freedom to think, associate and opine. For example, you can read a blog and leave an anonymous comment. That comment may be a sentence or a whole essay. Can LEE Kuan Yew clamp down on commenters? I think not. Can LEE Kuan Yew even take bloggers to court? Maybe today but it gets less and less likely as the Internet Age progresses. Already, there are proxies and encrypted communications that allow anonymous postings. If the PAP tries to wipe out blogs and Internet postings, all these will simply go underground. Then, there is email. The PAP cannot look into every email account to stamp out criticisms. For persistent emailers like me, it can quickly establish my identity and charge me but it cannot do this to the occasional critic. It is so easy to write and forward an email that it is ridiculous to treat it as equivalent to an essay meant for publication. That essay may be more formal but emails are often rough and thoughtless -- can you take the same stance on both? The law courts will not be able to handle the load!

Do you think that Singapore will become a more open society with the passing of LKY?

Definitely. I cannot wait for LEE Kuan Yew to die. He has committed and still committing so many crimes against me and my family and property that I will cheer his death. LEE Kuan Yew is from a different era. That man cannot even type, which primary schoolkids today all can. He still reads only printed paper documents, not a computer monitor. That is how backward he is. Can such a man run a 21st century country? No way! Besides, there are more university graduates today than there were people in Singapore when LEE Kuan Yew became PM. He is a relic, a kind of fossil from the past, alive long past his time. The sooner he goes the better.

You have been alleging on numerous postings that the PAP had rigged the Cheng San GRC results in GE 1997. Yet, you have not been sued. How do you get away with this?

Because it is true and I can prove it. My eyewitness is Mr David DUCLOS, a Singaporean eurasian and a Catholic. He has emailed me, then confirmed in person to my wife and I what he had seen and subsequently, confirmed on the phone to Dr CHEE Soon Juan what he wrote. Note that the police arrested me several times but never for my allegations of LEE Kuan Yew criminal attacks using TWS equipment from the flat above. Neither has he arrested or sued me for my allegations of his election rigging. Instead, he chose 2 other charges, the first for 'incitement to violence' and the second for 'criminal defamation'. Never for my allegations of his criminal attacks from the flat above or my allegations of his election rigging. He is afraid the truth will out and it is slowly outing. I have said before that if a criminal stops after a few crimes, he will usually get away with it but when he keeps committing the same crimes again and again, sooner or later he will luck out. LEE Kuan Yew's luck ran out long ago, in fact, the moment Mr DUCLOS emailed me. DUCLOS is heaven's way of evening out right and wrong.

With the view that the Government is finding it increasingly difficult to stifle, or even manage, political expression on the internet, what are your thoughts on Singapore for 2007 and beyond?

2007. A new year with all the promises of another year. Man is probably the only animal with a deep sense of time. Animals probably live out their entire lives triggered by the seasons or their hormones. Man alone have a sense of time, to plot and plan for the future, reminisce the past and recognise that the future can be moulded by his own efforts. That what we do today can shape tomorrow.

What will 2007 bring? Of this, we can be certain: 2007 will bring exciting new technologies that will entrench blogs like this and free Singaporeans even more as they start their own blogs. Many will discover that they need not even write much or anything at all. For example, aggregator blogs like Intelligent Singaporean are doing a good job of collating excellent blogs and important news articles and putting them all in one convenient click of the mouse.

I once wrote in one of my articles that 'historians of the future will probably divide human history into pre-Internet and Internet Ages, much like we currently divide history into BC and AD'; so important is the advent of the Internet, transforming human society, shaping lives and creating communities of the mind. Every morning, when I switch on my pc, I have a delicious sense of anticipation, that the day will bring forth some remarkable poetry from Xenoboy or sharp insights from Yawning Bread. Or that some news article will prove that the PAP is only human and very fallible, ha, ha, despite the unrelentingly one-sided portrayal by its controlled media [I once wrote an article entitled "The (PAP) Cult of Infallibility"]. Rarely do I swtich off disappointed.

For me, and for probably a million other Singaporeans, we are building a Singapore Community of the Mind. It is a true community by any definition. We share news, information, views, opinions; and argue, debate and dissect events of the day or issues of tomorrow. In other words, we interact, like any true community, Yet this community is still fragile and threatened by proposed new laws that tighten the already tight noose around online free thought and free speech, proposed by people who cannot understand the value of debate and discussion and who see in every criticism, an attempt to dethrone them.

One of the reasons why LKY and his PAP fear blogs is because of their very quality. The best Singaporean bloggers are astute, perceptive and highly intelligent, which is more than you can say for LEE Kuan Yew, LEE Hsien Loong and their PAP Ministers. The best of us can analyse and articulate far better than Them. That is the main reason why They want to shut us down. The best Singaporean bloggers are real Thought Leaders and Political Analysts and incisive Social Commentators. Do you have any Ministers who are as intelligent? Not a single one. George Yeo tries to write a blog but his efforts are pitiful. So are the efforts of the other PAPs.

On the Internet, it is not your position or job title that matters, it is what you write, which means what you think or can think. The Internet is a level playing field for all, PAPs and Others alike. If you can write and analyse intelligently, you will have an audience, if you can't, nobody reads you or are convinced or impressed by you. Thus, LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong fear blogs, not because they are rubbish or lies as alleged but because they are brilliantly argued and extremely well thought out. Some bloggers will actually make better Ministers than the present Cabinet. So LEE Kuan Yew and LEE Hsien Loong's fear of blogs is the primary fear of superior minds, a fear that has dogged power holders from ancient history. A fear that they cannot lead Thought as well as the best bloggers can. A fear of better solutions, better thinking and better ideas better expressed. LEE Kuan Yew fears blogs and the Internet, rightly because they allow free Speech and free Thoughts.

He also fears blogs because although they are fleeting and ephemeral, often only superficially written and read, often taking off from facts and articles in mainstream media, blogs can also be lasting and permanent, and therefore a record that future historians can mine for valuable clues to a society and state's preoccupations. LEE Kuan Yew would of course, prefer that historians only read his lying memoirs and his equally lying PAP media so blogs present a challenge to his always trying to have the last word in everything. Blogs present an alternative version of reality which challenges the artificial reality of PAP mainstream media. Additionally, if there is such a thing as a National IQ, blogs promise to raise that IQ, so LEE would rather that we remain stupid and therefore docile, fed lies and propaganda and swallowing it all. It is not surprising that, as one PAP MP was shocked to discover, "more than 80% of blogs are against the PAP government". That is nothing strange. It is just a natural reaction from the mainstream media's daily lies and spins and the total disservice they commit upon us. A new generation has discovered the power of the written word, the artful video and the sublime podcast. The National IQ is rising and fast. LEE would rather that we return to the old status quo in which no change is possible or tolerated. He is desperately tryng to drag us all back into the past, to an era where he always had the last word in everything and no dissent or criticism is possible, no alternative views are allowed. He always had a fear of free thinking, preferring that we instead think along lines he sets. Having said that, it is also an exaggerated fear.

Do you think this "exaggerated fear" permeates the PAP Government and its policies?

LEE Kuan Yew is the master exaggerator. All his life, he has exaggerated his achievements and the difficulties he faced. This exaggerationism is now entrenched into PAP methodology and so every online critic has to be silenced, by hook or by crook. His entire government applies this exaggerationism as its primary philosophy. When you exaggerate, you make yourself more heroic in proportion, the molehills you encounter become mountains, and your adversary or critic far more dangerous to you than they really are or were. You also overkill, which is either trying to be over successful or trying so hard that ultimately, the result may not even be worth the effort or the sacrifice -- or things and people sacrificed -- and much of the peoples' legitimate interests have been sacrificed unnecessarily due to this need to overtry, overkill and overdo.

In policying, exaggerationism means that you must always save a huge, vast sum for a rainy day that will never come. It means that you must create a fearful population forever afraid that tomorrow may never arrive and the sun may not rise. It means keeping a huge army for an invasion that will never happen. It means a perpetual prostituting to the Americans because they have the biggest army and economy. It means you must obsessively and relentlessly destroy every political opponent, no matter how insignificant. It means you must destroy this burgeoning online community because a populace is easier to control and manipulate if it is fragmented and divided [Divide and Conquer] and the online community promises to gel too many into a community not led by the PAP.

The thinking behind dictators is that communities of any kind are bad for their power and exercise of power. They would prefer their populace to be atomised into lone individuals or families because without a united front, they cannot be dethroned. Thus, all religious groups are closely watched because they are also true communities with leaders and many followers who listen to these leaders, meaning that they may not also listen to the PAP. This is one reason why the Catholic Church in Singapore was targetted in 1987-88 in the infamous so-called "Marxist Conspiracy" in which 22 totally innocent people were arrested and jailed without trial, accused of subversion to bring down the government.

Churches are communities and they are often rich, often owning multi-million dollar churches and they are pretty big communities sometimes. This exaggerated fear of groups or communities has led to the deliberate prevention and control of all societies in Singapore. The rules for registering any society of any kind, even a chess club, are strict and allow for the control of that society by the PAP. Thus, nothing is left to chance. LEE Kuan Yew prefers his entire population to be atomised into tiny individuals or families who do not communicate with one another or form a community. He would rather they simply go to work, come home to a tiny atomised family life and never interact with others. And he has succeeded in this. This is another aspect of his exaggerationism.

There is a more familiar word than exaggerationism: kiasuism. I have merely coined a new word so that you see it better when I reveal the local, very familiar, very understandable equivalent. In this, LEE Kuan Yew is once again, uninventive and uncreative as usual. He merely applied kiasuism, of which we Singaporeans are all guilty to differing degrees, to new heights and new lows.

So no true understanding of LEE Kuan Yew, his PAP or the government can be achieved without understanding kiasuism. The success and failure of LEE Kuan Yew and his PAP is kiasuism.

Kiasuism explains everything. From why the social welfare benefits are so meagre to why the state reserves are so huge to why the need for a huge army and defence spending to why the obsession with destroying even small oppositionists to shutting down Mr Brown to jailing bloggers to forever trying to increase government profits in every way imaginable to cheating in the 1997 Cheng San GRC elections to deny the tiny Workers Party a small electoral success of 5 parliamentary seats. Read my blog, "I came, I saw, I solved it".

In 2007, if LEE Kuan Yew is still sentient, this kiasuism will be even more evident as he tries to stamp-mould this kiasuism permanently into the entire Singapore state before he becomes non-sentient. He will lose because he is on the wrong side of technology, history and the progress of the the human race.

[End]

Robert HO's Almost-Complete Archive of Works

The revolution will not be televised

We have currently a built-in allergy to unpleasant or disturbing information. Our mass media reflect this...Television in the main is being used to distract, delude, amuse, and insulate us...This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box. Good night, and good luck.

- Edward R. Murrow

The availability of cellular phone cameras and video uploading facilities like YouTube are literally pulling the rug from under the controls that authoritarian governments and media corporations are exerting on the broadcast media. For example, rare images of North Korean poverty and public execution are now made watchable at the click of a mouse.

Likewise, you won't see the following images on Singapore's televison. Originally posted on Sg Review, with the video uploaded on archive.org, this clip of the Singapore riot police descending on four silent protesters is worth another look, now made more accessible on YouTube.



AFP report of the silent protest

Judge V.K. Rajah's ruling that the protesters' T-shirts and placards were "more incendiary than an ordinary affront or a localised breach of peace."


New wave of rebellion strikes China

In China, when the officially-sanctioned method of protest - filing a petition - becomes ineffective, protesters take to the streets. In 2004 alone, there were 74,000 incidents of social unrest across the country, from about 58,000 the previous year. It looks like the Chinese Communist Party may be buckling under its own weight of unrelenting capitalism and a growing class divide. In this 5 minute video report, Sky News produced a gripping testimony of how a prying media can unnerve State oppressors who, when they think that the outside world is oblivious, are at their brutal best.




In China, stresses spill over into riots
Beijing responds with a new campaign after at least eight recent violent incidents.

By Robert Marquand Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

BEIJING – In an effort to address recent unrest fed by disparate rural, ethnic, and economic tensions, China's leadership has embarked on a "harmonious society" campaign that emphasizes awareness of the country's rich-poor gap, and even tacitly suggests the nation is at a social "crossroads."
At least eight major incidents of violence and rioting have erupted in recent weeks, against a backdrop of thousands of minor incidents in recent years.

A number of the most recent mass blow ups were triggered by minor events, such as a fight or a traffic accident between haves and have-nots, before quickly escalating to involve thousands of people. The prevalence of such cases, where crowd numbers range from 500 to 10,000, suggest a reservoir of anger existing just below China's social surface, as well as a growing "consciousness of rights," say experts like Nicolas Becquelin of Human Rights in China.

"The unrest has been deeper and more longstanding than we've been led to believe," says Mr. Becquelin. "The problem has been keeping track of all the incidents."

The Chinese magazine Outlook put the 2003 figure of local disturbances about 58,000, involving an estimated 3 million persons.

Read the rest

Speakers Cornered teaser



When the Singapore Government refused to lift its long-standing ban on public protests during the 2006 IMF-World Bank meetings, a small group of local activists initiated a face-off with the police by attempting to stage a pro-democracy march from Speakers' Corner, a government-designated free-speech zone.