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Singapore Bloggers Charged Under Sedition Act
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Sep 12, 2005 02:11 PM
from the what-happened-to-anonymous-posts dept.
from the what-happened-to-anonymous-posts dept.
ChannelNewsAsia is reporting that for the first time in at least 10 years Singapore has invoked the sedition act and charged two local bloggers for posting racist comments on an online forum. From the article: 'Said Singaporean blogger Benjamin Lee (Mr Miyagi):" A lot of them will be looking at their blogs and wondering if they made any legally seditious remarks. I think because of the way this will be played up, it's negative publicity for the Singapore blogging community."'
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Arrrrgh... (Score:5, Funny)
Racism...
Freedom of speech...
Freedom of speech overrides natural desire to slowly boil racists...
*back to sleep*
Re:Arrrrgh... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think racism is awful, but I'm glad I live in a country that allows people to speak their mind. I do, however, tire of people "playing the race card", which IMHO is just as bad as the racism itself. It detracts from the situations where the complaints are real.
Partially OT, so feel free to mod me down.
Parent
No conflict at all in here... (Score:4, Funny)
Ta-da, problem solved.
NEXT!
Parent
*Sigh* look at it like this. (Score:5, Insightful)
This means that you cannot combat racism by limiting information or expression. The only effective way you can combat racism is by countering it with good information-- demonstrating the racists wrong, rather than silencing them.
If you try to fight racism by silencing it, you are only hurting yourself in the long run. Even aside from the slippery slope problem, you inevitably wind up with a situation where the fact you are trying to silence these people brands them with a false stamp of legitimacy. The old "help help I'm being oppressed" thing is a powerful tool, even to those whose message is itself in favor of oppression; the racists can easily twist the fact the government is trying to silence them into an argument in their favor.
In the long run this just isn't helpful; it's like trying to put out a grease fire by pouring oil on it. No good will come of what Singapore is trying to do here, only collateral damage.
Parent
Re:*Sigh* look at it like this. (Score:5, Interesting)
This means that you cannot combat racism by limiting information or expression. The only effective way you can combat racism is by countering it with good information-- demonstrating the racists wrong, rather than silencing them.
I hope you will help by contributing to Wikipedia's page on Race and Intelligence [wikipedia.org].
It's a bit one-sided at the moment.
Parent
Re:Arrrrgh... (Score:4, Insightful)
"Racism doesn't exist in America anymore!" followed quickly by "Fucking niggers stealing hubcaps!" (Rural Western PA, about 2 months ago)
Parent
Re:Arrrrgh... (Score:4, Funny)
1) I seldom actually boil people. Usually I set them on a low simmer.
2) I freely admit to being fallible. There's a speck of the racist (or more) in all of us.
3) People I feel like boiling are the sort you would recognize as not just racist, but proudly so.
Parent
Is racist speech every ok? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is an honest question. As much as I hate racism and hate speech, I have to admit that Dave Chapelle, whose comedy many times has to do with race, is one of the best/original comedians out there today.
Of course his is meant for comedy rather than hate, but where does one draw the line?
how have they defined "racism"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Good news, bad news (Score:4, Funny)
Bad news: They'll be keeping their blogs updated using LYNX.
Caning . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Wonder if that could happen here?
Speaking as an Irishman (Score:5, Insightful)
Surprised? Not. It's Singapore (Score:5, Interesting)
Drug dealers = death penalty. Vandalism = caning (remember that?). No selling gum. No chewing gum (at least in public). No joke.
While I don't think the totalitarianism is required, I will say that Singapore is VERY clear about the rules. Everybody knows them and everybody knows that if you break them, you do so at your own risk. They don't seem to have as many ambiguous laws as here in the US so it seems to work pretty well. The fact that some bloggers would post "maybe it will get me in trouble" stuff, is very ballsy.
Re:Kettle calling. (Score:5, Informative)
Don't make a mountain out of molehill. It's not even a close comparison.
Parent
some background (Score:5, Informative)
singapore is an outpost of chinese in a malay region
it is a country independent of malaysia simply because the chinese there feared dilution of their power by malays
there is a history of friction between the chinese merchant class and the local malay population throughout the region, actually very similar to the resentment europeans had for the jewish merchant class that led to so much racially motivated nastiness there for centuries
malays and filipinos to this day complain of how they are treated by the chinese in singapore, who they say view them as little more than domestic servants or coolies
in the 1960s, under the guise of fighting communism, indonesians slaughtered thousands simply for having chinese ancestry... and confiscated their businesses
so maybe some of you who are very idealistically attached to the concept of free speech, without any mitigating conditions, perhaps you can at least understand why singapore would be so interested on clamping down on hate speech in its territory: it's not a big country, and it must remain at peace with its huge malay neighbors, at whom this hate speech is directed by some really stupid chinese bigotted bloggers
Re:some background (Score:4, Informative)
Not just Malaysians either - my friend told me that even up to a couple of years ago, you would see signs outside construction sites that said "Indians need not apply".
Parent
I guess they have bigger problems (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, that's right. If you take a group of people who already view themselves as racially, not culturally, superior to another and force them to limit their liberties so as to not offend the group they condescend to, their natural reaction will be to condescend even more because "clearly, those people are so weak that they can't even handle a bad attitude."
Conflicts like this usually have very, very deep roots and it never ceases to amaze me how American left-liberals can never fail to suggest to change a group's natural reaction instead of accepting it. Hate to break it to you people, but the reality is that the strong do not typically respect those that are weaker than they are. That is life. You do not expect a lion to respect a terrier, so why expect a group that is very economically and militarily powerful in their region to respect a group that is by comparison very weak? Are we not animals as well, and do not both religion and science agree that the strong does not respect the weak?
Yes, let's encourage them to reevaluate their attitudes and seek to become better people by accepting others' weakness. Do as the Bible idealizes, and encourage the lion to have the strength of will and character to lay down with the sheep. But do not think that it is natural, and do not think that a weekly class on "tolerance" is going to make them like those they tend to look down on. Besides, technically they already show tolerance toward them because tolerance simply means live-and-let live. It doesn't imply you like them or want anything to do with them. It means you tolerate them, which is basically what most people do to small children who behave like brats or yappy little dogs. What they need is brotherly/sisterly reconciliation between their groups, not some half-assed bullshit called tolerance.
Parent
One of these things is not like the other (Score:4, Insightful)
n : an illegal action inciting resistance to lawful authority and tending to cause the disruption or overthrow of the government.
racism
n : discriminatory or abusive behavior towards members of another race.
Singapore cultural values are different.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Holding this contentious group together is a miracle given the tensions in the region. The economic success of Singapore is legendary in a region where its neighbors routinely slaughter each other- Indonesians with rebels, Malaysians with sectarian strife, Thai with sectarian strife, and so on. Singapore has to hold together ethnic Chinese, Malay, Tamils, as well as expats from all over the region, Euros, and so on. They take racial prejudice very seriously, and if they didn't they'd have bedlam.
Yes, Singapore is draconian in other ways, and is also known as the "Fine City" where every offense is a S$500 fine. They execute drug smugglers. So, don't smuggle drugs there. It's a follow-the-rules place. Not much crap is put up with. But it's not a police state, it just lacks a lot of democracy and free speech. This seems to suit the population, who are the envy of all of their neighbors. I've traveled the region many times; Singapore is the 52nd US State (after British Columbia)
Mr Miyagi (Score:4, Informative)
His blog can be found here [miyagi.sg] and the post where he talks about the charges can be found here [miyagi.sg].
Here's what happened (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Link? (Score:5, Funny)
Perhaps the original author was afraid that the Slashdot effect would put a chink in the armor of the hosting company's intrusion detection system, and was just trying to help keep the log files spic and span of extraneous hits. In any case, thanks for not being niggardly with the links.
Parent
Re:The Price of Being Chinese (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course, what is more pathetic is that the West should stand up to such governments, but the West has been taken over by corporate lackeys who are only interested in bottom lines.
"We don't like what you do, but we like what you pay."
Parent
As opposed to the upstanding Republicans? (Score:4, Informative)
Because the Republicans [wsws.org] would never stifle free-speech.
Before you point out that the Dems did more or less the same thing, I'm not even attempting to exonerate them. It's actually possible to see the flaws in both parties.
However, from my perception, the Republican track record does seem worse than the Democratic one. Many right-wingers like to talk about the shackles of political correctness, but have no problem with calling you anti-American if you point out that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11.
Parent
Re:Why does this have to be negative? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sedition is an act of rebellion against the state. How is classifying racist comments as sedition appropriate?
The logic seems to be that "promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility between races in Singapore" is inherently seditious. You could redefine theft to be sedition using that logic (hey, it "promotes suspicion amongst neighbours in Singapore").
If racist comments are not tolerable in Singapore, then they should pass a law about that instead of leaving it up to an official to twist the meaning of an existing law out of all proportion to punish somebody for something he doesn't like.
This doesn't appear to be somebody breaking the law and getting caught, it appears to be somebody doing something legal but distasteful, and having somebody in the government abuse the law to pursue a vendetta because they don't like it.
Parent