Singapore is the most complete authoritarian system in Asia today and perhaps also in the world. It is an authoritarian system that has entrenched itself on a small island which, due to certain circumstances, is relatively an economic success. The founder of the modern authoritarian system, Lee Kuan Yew, has consistently claimed that it is due to strong leadership that Singapore has become an economic success story. By strong leadership, he means a draconian system of control which restricts any possibility of people’s participation in political affairs. That ruling is the business of the ruling political party and that the people should keep out of political affairs is a latent political philosophy that has been a pillar of the system for decades. The suppression of attempts to build a political party as an alternative to the People’s Action Party (PAP) is resisted with ruthless efficiency through mainly rigorous imposition of some laws which obstruct freedom of expression and organisation.
Laws, for instance, relating to defamation, with the possibility of large sums of money being awarded to political leaders who claim to have been defamed, makes bankruptcy proceedings one of the most powerful tools in the suppression of political movements in Singapore. The notion that political movements will lead to chaos within the country and that ethnic factors will play havoc with the situation if free political expression is allowed is part of the dogma of the state of Singapore. Singapore prevents monitoring of human rights by U.N. agencies and tacitly claims human rights as an alien concept that can harm national interests, which, in fact, mean the interests of the ruling party.
The constant suppression of freedom of expression and organisation has manifested itself in various events throughout the last few decades. The most recent example is the imprisonment of Singapore’s opposition leader, Dr. Chee Soon Juan, a neuropsychologist whose crime is speaking in a public place.
Chee was imprisoned earlier this year for speaking in public on April 22 prior to Singapore’s latest general election. He and other members of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) were speaking to passing citizens in the course of selling the party newspaper on the street.
The current sentence is five weeks in prison. Two of Chee’s SDP colleagues, Gandhi Ambalam and Yap Keng Ho, were sentenced to shorter incarceration terms. All three had initially received heavy fines but have now been jailed by the Singapore Subordinate Court due to their refusal to pay. Recent reports indicate a deterioration in Chee’s health as a result of imprisonment.
Chee refused to pay the fine as a matter of principle. In a statement read in court on November 23, 2006, he exhorted the judiciary to recognise the ‘difference in punishing someone who has committed a crime versus punishing someone who is fighting for democracy and the rights of the people.’ Chee pointed out that criminal punishment is typically meant to either deter or rehabilitate the offender.
Imprisoning Chee for pursuing his peaceful campaign for democracy will not serve either purpose. As he put it, “What will punishing me achieve? Do you think it will rehabilitate me and deter me from doing what I am doing?”
