Wikileaks and Singapore’s reputation

A series of Wikileaks cables obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald has shown that senior Singaporean officials have been sending confidential information to their U.S. counterparts on their dismissive impressions of neighbouring states.

Expect protests for G20 Seoul summit

Expect protests and counter-repression tactics during the upcoming G20 Seoul summit happening between 11 and 12 November. According to the NGO coalition, Put People First! Korean People’s G20 Response Action, which consists of an alliance of student, trade unions and other civil society participants, 200 foreign activists have already been banned from entering Seoul during the intergovernmental meeting.

A slice of history: SGX – ASX… Singtel – Optus

The recent kerfuffle over Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) bid to take over the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) is not unsurprising.

Relevance of Universal Periodic Review in Singapore’s case

In its report to the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR), Singaporeans for Democracy (SFD), an NGO promoting local and regional democracy and human rights, focused on the city state’s electoral system, which it claims, is the root cause of all human rights abuses. While this is a commendable effort in drawing attention to the shortcomings of the electoral system and appears to coincide with upcoming general elections, its appraisals and recommendations may be of little relevance to the review due to the tenuous and indirect links between free and fair elections and human rights violations. It remains at best, speculative, that open and independent elections would naturally create conducive factors leading to human rights promotion. Moreover, the UPR is tasked to deal with specific human rights violations. As such, NGOs should have chosen to focus on these issues such as the death penalty. While Article 21 of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights (UDHR) affirms the right of all peoples to representative government, this is not explicitly suggested by the SFD report. This article, divided into two parts, briefly describe the history, procedures, strengths and shortcomings of the UPR, before situating within the Singapore context.

Time to question ISA detention (again)

The Singapore government has announced the detention of a 20 year old national service man, Muhammad Fadil bin Abdul Hamid, under the Internal Security Act (ISA) since April this year for expressing an intent to ‘fighting for militant jihad in the Palestinian territories, Iraq and Afghanistan’.