Freedom is Slavery!
Yay, Freedom House has released our latest damning media-freedom results. The original article is at Freedomhouse’s website. This is part of the wording, in case you’re lethargic to click on that;
Media freedom in Singapore is constrained to such a degree that the vast majority of journalists practice self-censorship rather than risk being charged with defamation or breaking the country’s criminal laws on permissible speech. The constitution guarantees freedom of speech and of expression in Article 14, but it also permits restrictions on these rights. Legal constraints include the Newspapers and Printing Presses Act, the Defamation Act, and the Internal Security Act, all of which allow authorities to restrict the circulation of news deemed to incite violence, arouse racial or religious tensions, interfere in domestic politics, or threaten public order, national interest, or national security. The government proposed a series of amendments to the penal code in 2006 that would cover offenses committed via digital media. The draft amendments would not only provide jail terms or fines for defamation, “statements that would cause public mischief,” and the “wounding” of racial or religious feeling, they would also make it a crime for anyone outside the country to abet an offense committed inside the country, thereby allowing the authorities to prosecute internet users living abroad. Singaporean students studying overseas are the presumed targets of this amendment……
Annoying people! Why do you come and ruin my happy ideal that the Gahmen is good and free and the punishments it enacts are only to control unwieldily nation-wrecking elements of society?
At this rate it’s gonna be unsustainable. You have a good education, you teach your cream of the crop about true democracy, about true knowledge gaining, about true critical thought – because otherwise you’ll be really indoctrinating through-and-through. But someday your pupils are going to grow up, and by then the NE that was so soothing in childhood will seem too small a plaster for that gaping wound, and they will either a)try to reform the country [and get jailed?fined?ruined for life?] b)b)brainwashed by the Gahmen or c)leave.
And Joel Tan who talks about ST bloggers who seem as annoyingly preachy as my some history teachers that I know.
Tsktsk! And Melvin from Hougang sifted through the information:
2007
Ranking: 154 out of 195
Category: Free / Partly Free / Not Free
Same Rankings: Afghanistan, Djibouti, Gabon
First class city, third class press. Fun!
YouthQuake – Voting for 18 and above
Should 18-year-olds be allowed to vote?
If you don’t trust your twelve years of indoctrination nation-building National Education, that your people will choose what is good for them, then I am sad for the fate of the country. The extra three years for what, people to appreciate more of university life or army life (ooh, must NS their brains senget then can vote – eminently SENSIBLE!) or what not?
Anyway practically speaking, a hundred fifty thousand more voters in Singapore ain’t gonna make much of a difference. Unless, of course, the Gahmen is scared that badbad youths will not vote the way they want.
Mas Selamat and Wong Kan Seng
Mas Selamat escaped so long already, if you say you didn’t know, I will stick you back under the pebble you were hibernating under. And if you tell me you didn’t know PM Lee’d made a bullshitty statement about it, I’ll give you more pebbles to build a nice house in. (And a PAP flag to hang over your windows and kowtow to every morning.)
Still, for reference read this from the Straits Times, just to get a rough idea of the proceedings, in case you’ve been hibernating under a pebble.
Just a few comments, though. I quote PM Lee once:
‘Whether it’s a big mistake or a small mistake, if they are responsible, they have to answer for it,’
And again:
I do not believe that Wong Kan Seng should resign over this issue alone. Whether or not he should resign, in addition to other failings, is something else altogether.
He also said that he wouldn’t sack the ISD Director, for approximately the same reasons.
The reasoning in the rest of the transcript explains PM Lee’s justification. In summary, a person who doesn’t have direct influence shouldn’t be punished?
Ministers never do have direct influence. All their work is saikang-ed by their juniors – the upstairs kick it to the downstairs, and if there is basement, will kick from ground floor to bottomless pit. The people with ‘direct fault’ are the Gurkha guards, ISD low-level staff, etc – all the people lower down the chain. Eh wait, aren’t they taking cues from their superiors’ attitudes?!
Aiya don’t know lah. I only learned one thing. Must aim to work as a high-high official in Gahmen next time. Diamond rice bowl orhh! (credits to him)
Eh I heard that somewhere outside Singapore (aka 夜郎国) got some dunno-what countries, sack their PM and ministers for smaller issues. Another country kicked their leader out for promiscuity. Tsk tsk, such evil unforgiving peoples! They should understand their country’s leaders have their unique challenges, must 体谅体谅 cut them lots of slack!
The Chua sisters (Ah Mui and Ah Lee) have spoken! O Holy Sirens. Let’s see what Mui has to say here.
