Francis T. Seow

(Ed. note: Francis T. Seow, a Singaporean, is a research fellow of the East Asia Legal Studies at the Harvard Law School.)

The legal harassment of Dr. Chee Soon-juan, the Singapore Democratic Party leader, raises important constitutional concerns: the repression of the fundamental rights of a citizen by the People’s Action Party (PAP) government through the discriminating use of the laws.

Judging by the press reports, Dr. Chee had properly applied to hold a conference to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an event then being celebrated worldwide. But the PAP authorities, using an old, well-tried stratagem, deliberately sat on his application thereby frustrating the holding of the conference.

The PAP itself suffers from no such disability: whenever the PAP wants to hold a meeting, it holds it. It does not require a prior permit. Likewise, appearances on public platform require prior PAP approval. But it does not apply to the PAP. The line between the PAP as a party and as a government has blurred over time. Witness Dr. Chee’s book, To Be Free, published by the respected Monash Asia Institute, Australia. It is not a subversive book, but about stories from Asia’s struggle against oppression. The PAP cunningly did not ban the book, but fined him for not having obtained a prior permit to sell it. If he had applied for such a permit, it is doubtful he would have got it. If experience were any guide, it would also have been sat on.

There are more such prickly points, regarding which the PAP government should be called upon to account. I would like to touch on one other. Dr. Chee alluded to Singapore’s investments overseas, particularly in Burma, China and Indonesia. It has been rumoured abroad for a long time those investments have lost much money - by how much and whether they are recoverable are not known. The PAP government has been singularly silent if not secretive about them. Singaporeans are entitled to know how their tax money had been used, the amounts involved and the present state of Singapore’s investments in those countries, among others.

In the circumstances, Dr. Chee rightly reminded Singaporeans of the essential freedoms of free speech and expression, association, and other concomitant rights, and the lip-service PAP leaders pay to those proclaimed ideals. But Dr. Chee - with respect to him - is but a pale imitation of Singapore’s erstwhile freedom fighter, whose rousing exhortation to Singaporeans, if I may paraphrase it, was that "men should be free ... should have the right of free association, of free speech, of free publication, and no law should be permitted to set those democratic processes at nought." Thus, when Information Minister George Yeo purported to claim that "most Singaporeans do not want more freedom to debate political issues openly," it not only offends but it insults the intelligence of informed Singaporeans.