The more oppressive this government becomes, the more determined I am to break the shackles of repression. The tyranny that exists here has also called up strength and will in me that I never thought I had - Siok Chin, ‘The best place to be during those 72 hours’
At the European Parliamentary Democracy Caucus hearing in Brussels, Belgium in March this year, Chee Siok Chin, a member of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) voiced out concerns about regional leaders such as Mr Nong Duc Manh of Vietnam, former Thai prime minister Thaksin, and Hun Sen of Cambodia of emulating Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his party’s authoritarian rule (CALD 2008).
While she has received less attention as compared to her brother, Dr Chee Soon Juan, her commitment to defending human rights in Singapore is equally outstanding. Read the rest of this entry »
Amnesty International has released a statement calling the Chinese government to release activists who have been imprisoned for the Tiananmen protests in 1989; as well as those who have been arrested for demanding their release.
Those who were detained for the Tiananmen incident includes Miao Deshun, to be released on 15 September 2018; Liu Zhihua, to be released on 16 January 2011; Wang Jun, due for release on 11 December 2009.
Yang Tongyan, who is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence for “subversion”, had previously criticized the 1989 pro-democracy crackdown. Shi Tao is serving a 10-year sentence for ’sending an email summarizing a Chinese Central Propaganda Department communiqué on how journalists should handle the fifteenth anniversary of the crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement’. Former trade unionist, Kong Youping, was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment in 2004 for posting internet articles urging for ‘ a reassessment of the 1989 pro-democracy movement’.
—
On the other hand, it is alarming news to read that Canada has imposed upon house arrest on at least 5 non-citizens who have not been charged with any offenses except being guilty of being suspected of being involved in terrorism.
Known as the Secret Trial Five, these five male Muslims are accused of being ‘connected to Islamic terrorist groups’. However, they cannot be charged as they are detained under ‘a security certificate’ which means a fair trial is denied to them as the cases has to remain a secret “for reasons of national security”. Al Jazeera has produced a short clip on Mohammed Harkat (see above), who has to depend on his wife for his daily survival and affairs. This has caused an indefinite strain in the family.
Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought - John Rawls
As Walter Woon, Singapore’s Attorney General, decries human rights as a western concept, its courts have decided to pronounce its Opposition, Dr Chee and Singapore Democrats, guilty of defamation against its country’s ruling party leaders, Senior Lee Kuan Yew and son Hsien Loong. This outcome is unsurprising given the courts have ‘demonstrated a singular facility at bending over backwards to render decisions favourable to the Singapore government and its leaders’ (Seow 2007). Human rights organisations from Amnesty International to the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists, and the Lawyers’ Human Rights Watch Canada have also ’send legal representatives to Singapore to observe the trial proceedings at first hand’ (Seow 2007) in previous defamation suits and arrived at the same conclusions.
