Alvin and Vivian’s Religious Provocation in Malaysia and Racial Harmony Day Singapore

Infamous Malaysian sex bloggers Alvin Tan and Vivian Lee are doing it again to score controversy. However, they got more than they bargained for by provoking Muslims in Malaysia and were charged with sedition today. Their crime was stupidity as they not only provoked Muslims, but provoked them during Ramadan. It was not accidental, and totally deliberate. Incidentally, Malaysia and Singapore are so similar in that Malaysia also resorted to sedition laws to squash racial and religious provocation. Although the slight difference is that in Malaysia it is used to protect the majority’s interests, in Singapore in past cases it is used to protect minority’s interests.

Alvin and Vivian’s precarious Internet stunt to gain attention is unwise in multi-racial Malaysia, given the racial and religious sensitivities of their bad joke. In Singapore, schools acknowledge Racial Harmony Day on Friday although to be exact, the Day is marked annually as on 21 July. Many of us would have forgotten or never knew the significance of this weird red letter day.

On 21 July 1964, the historic Chinese-Malay riots broke out in Singapore, supposedly because of provocation between Chinese and Malays when Malays were marching in Geylang to celebrate Prophet Mohammad’s birthday. Nonetheless, the context of the riots was deeper and charged by UMNO-PAP tension e.g. PAP’s campaigning in Malaysia for a Malaysian Malaysia which was a frontal challenge to UMNO’s bumiputra politics.

Malaysia sex bloggers charged over pork posting
Created 18/07/2013 – 14:09

A Malaysian couple known for a sexually explicit blog were charged Thursday with sedition after they caused outrage by posting a Ramadan greeting on Facebook which showed them eating pork.

Alvin Tan, 25, and Vivian Lee, 24, pleaded not guilty to publishing or distributing a “seditious publication” and two other charges in a Kuala Lumpur district court in Muslim-majority Malaysia, a court official said.

They were denied bail and so will be jailed pending trial, she said. The next court date has been set for August 23.

Sedition is punishable by up to three years in jail.

The duo had posted a greeting for the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan on social networking site Facebook last week, showing a poster of them eating pork, which is forbidden in Islam.

They later apologised in a video on YouTube for the posting, which sparked widespread anger. Their Facebook page is no longer accessible.

The other charges were causing disharmony on the grounds of religion and possessing or producing obscene material, which is punishable by up to five years in jail, the official said.

Prime Minister Najib Razak criticised the couple on Wednesday while discussing implementing a new law to replace the colonial-era sedition act, which has been slammed by critics as a tool to crack down on dissent.

“The insolent and impudent act by the young couple who insulted Islam showed that freedom of expression and irresponsible opinion can jeopardise the community,” he was quoted by The Star as saying.

Last year Lee, a kindergarten teacher, and Tan, who is currently unemployed and a former law student at the National University of Singapore, sparked outrage in Malaysia and Singapore by posting erotic photographs and videos of their lovemaking as well as close-ups of their genitals on a blog.

The duo, who said they aimed to destigmatise sex, shut down the blog because of family pressure in the conservative countries, where pornography is illegal.

Democracy in Singapore

Wall Street Journal’s opinion piece on Lee vs Chee. “But at least, thanks to the Internet, they are able to read the exchange and make up their own minds.” The best statement made in that article as we wade through the arguments posited from all sides. By why is democracy in Singapore always about Dr Chee vs the PAP? That simplifies the whole debate too much and makes it seem that only Dr Chee is the champion of “democracy” in Singapore. That certainly cannot be the truth isn’t it as nobody should have the monopoly on what democracy is all about – not the PAP, not Dr Chee. What about the Workers’ Party, who seem to have been deliberately written off by the international media, although that party is in the best position in the past few years to dislodge the PAP from a GRC even.

Democracy in Singapore
26 June 08

Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore can rightly be proud of many achievements, but full democracy is not one of them. The city-state he founded in 1965 and led as Prime Minister until 1990 is economically prosperous and its citizens enjoy a range of freedoms. Political dissent is not among them.

Which makes a recent David vs. Goliath exchange between one of the country’s few opposition politicians and Mr. Lee worth noting. The dialogue took place in a courtroom and is therefore privileged – which means we can report on it without risking a lawsuit, which Mr. Lee often files against critics. Audio files are available on the Singapore Democratic Party’s Web site, and a partial transcript is available at Singapore Rebel, an independent blog.

The setting was a hearing to assess damages against Chee Soon Juan, head of the Singapore Democratic Party, and his sister and colleague, Chee Siok Chin. In 2006, the Chees lost a defamation suit brought by Mr. Lee and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, over an article they published in their party newsletter that was interpreted by the court to imply corruption on the part of the government. In last month’s hearing, the elder Mr. Lee, who holds the title of Minister Mentor, was cross-examined by Mr. Chee, who was representing himself.

Mr. Chee is no orator, and on one level the dissident was no match for the eloquent Mr. Lee. But when the subject turned to the moral underpinnings of democracy – freedoms of speech, assembly and association – the debate went game, set and match to Mr. Chee.

Mr. Chee set out his philosophy while questioning Mr. Lee: “What I’m interested in is justice, the rule of law, because ultimately it is not about you, Mr. Lee. It is not about me. It’s about the people of Singapore, it is about this country and everything we stand for. You and I will pass on, but I can tell you, the practice of the rule of law, the entire concept of justice, democracy – that is going to last for all eternity.”

Mr. Lee didn’t respond directly to those assertions, choosing instead to cite the International Bar Association’s decision to “honor” Singapore by holding its annual conference there last year and noted a letter from the association’s president saying “how impressed they were by the standards they found to obtain in the judiciary.”

Elsewhere in the hearing, Mr. Lee defended his string of defamation suits against opposition politicians and the press: “They know me by now,” Mr. Lee said, referring to the people of Singapore, “that if anybody impugns the integrity of the government, of which I was the prime minister, I must sue.”

He went on: “There are various parts of this government which do not comply with Western practices, including the law of libel. But it is a system that has worked.” Mr. Lee has never lost a libel suit. He and his son are currently suing the Far Eastern Economic Review, a sister publication of this newspaper, and its editor, Hugo Restall.

Our reading is that the Minister Mentor sounded more than a tad defensive – no less so than in his characterization of Mr. Chee, who has been bankrupted as a result of lawsuits by Mr. Lee and other politicians. He called Mr. Chee, a “liar, a cheat and altogether an unscrupulous man.” Not to mention “a near-psychopath.” Mr. Chee, for his part, referred to Mr. Lee as a “pitiable figure.”

It’s hard to know what Singaporeans make of all this. Mr. Lee is widely revered as the father of their country, and Mr. Chee is often scorned for his aggressive tactics. But at least, thanks to the Internet, they are able to read the exchange and make up their own minds.

So, too, in the case of Gopalan Nair, which is making its way through the courts now. Mr. Nair is a former Workers’ Party candidate. He is now a U.S. citizen and online advocate for media freedom in Singapore. He traveled to the city-state to attend Mr. Chee’s hearing last month and recorded his thoughts on his blog, where he expressed his contempt for the court proceedings and challenged Mr. Lee to sue him.

On May 31, he was arrested and interrogated. On June 2, he was charged with insulting Judge Belinda Ang, who presided over the Chee hearing, by email. He was released on June 5, six days after his initial arrest, and charged on June 12 with insulting another judge in a separate, 2006 email. Last week, the court changed the first charge and specified that the offending remarks about Judge Ang were made on a blog, not by email.

Mr. Nair’s case is scheduled to go to court in mid-July. Meanwhile, Mr. Chee was just released from jail, where he served 11 days for “scandalizing” the court during his questioning of Mr. Lee. His sister served 10 days. The court has yet to set the amount of monetary damages in the defamation case. When it does, we’ll know the price of political dissent these days in Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore.

What now for FEER?

FEER is being sued by MM Lee and PM Lee over a 2006 pro-Chee Soon Juan article. Those familiar with the Lees’ pattern of lawsuit to counter defamation against them would know that this tactic is specifically for opposition members like JBJ and Dr Chee Soon Juan, but not Workers’ Party or Singapore Democratic Alliance members so far. This lawsuit tactic, with the adamant right of reply, is also used on foreign publications if they report something that is allegedly defamatory. The PAP reasons that defamation of PAP leaders especially by the foreign media cannot go unchallenged as the allegations which undermined the legitimacy of the government is read by both an international and Singapore audience. Double the insult, so to speak.

There is something about history repeating when the PAP brings people to court in Singapore. I have this feeling that the Lees would win the case and FEER would have to pay damages, which would then be donated to a charity, reinforcing the Lees’ moral high ground explanation that what they are doing is based on principle and not profit.

Is Singapore’s judiciary going to accede to the Lees’ call for summary judgment? The Lees’ position implies that they are going to win and there is no point going to trial. If the court goes into summary judgment and presumably the PAP wins, they again confirm the allegation that the judiciary in PAP political cases is almost always biased in favour of the PAP. It is more interesting if the court plays it out, Singapore then has to wait and see how the case unfolds first before we can understand how the judiciary is thinking. Whenever such cases are brought to trial, I would like to think that the PAP would one day lose.

Maybe we should be asking, what not for Singapore’s judiciary?

Lawyers for PM, MM apply for summary judgment
Friday • May 16, 2008
Ansley Ng
ansley@mediacorp.com.sg

LAWYERS for the Far Eastern Economic Review (Feer) will present their case in court today, to fight off an application for a summary judgment made by lawyers for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

In a closed-door hearing in the chambers of Justice Woo Bih Li yesterday, the lawyers for the Lees argued their case for a summary judgment — a court decision that is awarded in favour of the plaintiff without going through a hearing — against the publication.

They are suing the Hong Kong-based publication and its editor Hugo Restall for publishing an allegedly defamatory article in July 2006.

Last year, Feer lost in its bid to have the case heard outside of Singapore and for the right to engage a Queen’s Counsel (QC) to defend it.

They claimed that many Senior Counsels — the Singapore equivalent of QCs — here lack experience in libel suits and declined or did not respond when asked to act for Feer.

Lawyers for the Lees are claiming a summary judgment, arguing that Feer’s case has no merit.