[h=1]MINISTER OF STATE SAM TAN USES "PUBLIC RECORDS" TO COUNTER EXILE'S STORY[/h]
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11 Nov 2014 - 12:31am
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[photos credit:The Online Citizen]
“I have never condoned nor incited violence, as alleged by the PAP government previously,” Mr Ho Juan Thai said.
That is not true, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office and for Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth Sam Tan countered.
“Mr Ho had made inflammatory speeches in GE 1976 as a Workers’ Party candidate. He had said that the Government was out to “exterminate” Chinese education in Singapore and “wipe out” the Chinese language, and that the achievement of the Government was the “killing of Chinese education”, Mr Tan said.
But Mr Ho said, “All the speeches I made regarding languages issues were well-consulted with the WP leadership back then and in line with our party policy of not discriminating against any language stream of education.
“The government tried to further justify their action against me by accusing me of inciting racial violence in my general election speeches. Mr Jeyaretnam challenged the government in Parliament to apply the well-defined Sedition Acts to charge me in an open court. I also repeated this request for an open trial.
“The government has ignored all these requests for an open court process to settle the matter. Why?”
This was the content in two letters that Mr Ho had first written to The Online Citizen, which Mr Tan then replied to.
Mr Ho is one of the exiles featured in the film, ‘To Singapore with Love’ by Ms Tan Pin Pin.
Mr Ho’s letter was published on November 2. Mr Tan rebutted his letter eight days later.
“My leaving Singapore was a heart breaking decision for me. I had to leave as I believed my personal safety was at risk,” Mr Ho said.
“Sometime after the December 1976 Singapore General Elections, a group of Internal Security Department plain-clothes policemen came to arrest me. One of them had drawn his pistol shouting at me in Hokkien, “Don’t run, if you run I will open fire”.”
But Mr Tan countered, “Mr Ho also makes contradictory claims: on the one hand, that he was a victim of police intimidation, and on the other, that he was willing to turn himself in for questioning. These are contradictory and unconvincing reasons for him absconding to Malaysia.”
But in Mr Ho’s version of the events, it was different from Mr Tan’s claims.
“A few days after the police failed to find me they put up a “wanted” notice on television and in the newspapers. In the news release, they said the police just wanted to question me over the election speeches I made as a Worker’s Party candidate. They did not say anything about how they have failed to arrest me and threatened to shoot me.
“What would they do, make me confess on national TV for things that I have never done?
“If the police only wanted to question me, why didn’t they just send me a letter or inform the Workers Party that they needed to talk to me about the election speeches I made? I would have responded to a civilised request.
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Mr Ho said, “the government accused me of running away from Singapore immediately after the general elections as I knew I had committed an offence during the elections.
“It was totally untrue.”
“In fact, I did not leave Singapore after the General Elections. I went back to work and conducted my day to day life as usual.”
Mr Tan also took aimed with how Mr Ho had left Singapore.
“Mr Tan ran away from Singapore on a … flimsy excuse: his alleged fear that “accidents” would occur to him in National Service… He entered UK using his expired Singapore passport with a forged extension endorsement.”
To that, Mr Ho said, “The only reason I did not apply for an exit permit to leave Singapore and did not have my passport extended by the authorities was because I acted under duress as the police threatened to shoot me and the government accused me of crimes I did not commit.
“Would you not flee if a gun was pointed at you?
The exchange between Mr Ho and Mr Tan comes after the government banned Ms Tan’s film, claiming that the film was a threat to national security.
In Mr Tan’s letter, he repeatedly said that his claims are “facts” and “statements” that are put on “public record”.
However, Mr Ho was speaking from his own personal experience.
Mr Ho said, “I was an opposition candidate acting with his social conscience.”
“We all want a true and fair democratic, stable and prosperous society. Rather than see our people pursuing each other with knives to our backs, I prefer to see us all working together side by side for a country that is democratic and caring, with a strong economy, effective national defence, and a first world parliamentary system.”
In a letter that Mr Ho had written in 2010, he said, “I am nobody and am just like anyone of you who cares and loves our Singapore. Do I deserve such treatment?”
Speaking of his experience of having been forced into exile, Mr Ho also said, “if you look at the series of events over the last 33 years you will realise that it is more about they and their desperate attempts to deny a past parliamentary candidate from ever again participating in open parliamentary politics in a cowardice way.”
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11 Nov 2014 - 12:31am
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[photos credit:The Online Citizen]
“I have never condoned nor incited violence, as alleged by the PAP government previously,” Mr Ho Juan Thai said.
That is not true, Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office and for Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth Sam Tan countered.
“Mr Ho had made inflammatory speeches in GE 1976 as a Workers’ Party candidate. He had said that the Government was out to “exterminate” Chinese education in Singapore and “wipe out” the Chinese language, and that the achievement of the Government was the “killing of Chinese education”, Mr Tan said.
But Mr Ho said, “All the speeches I made regarding languages issues were well-consulted with the WP leadership back then and in line with our party policy of not discriminating against any language stream of education.
“The government tried to further justify their action against me by accusing me of inciting racial violence in my general election speeches. Mr Jeyaretnam challenged the government in Parliament to apply the well-defined Sedition Acts to charge me in an open court. I also repeated this request for an open trial.
“The government has ignored all these requests for an open court process to settle the matter. Why?”
This was the content in two letters that Mr Ho had first written to The Online Citizen, which Mr Tan then replied to.
Mr Ho is one of the exiles featured in the film, ‘To Singapore with Love’ by Ms Tan Pin Pin.
Mr Ho’s letter was published on November 2. Mr Tan rebutted his letter eight days later.
“My leaving Singapore was a heart breaking decision for me. I had to leave as I believed my personal safety was at risk,” Mr Ho said.
“Sometime after the December 1976 Singapore General Elections, a group of Internal Security Department plain-clothes policemen came to arrest me. One of them had drawn his pistol shouting at me in Hokkien, “Don’t run, if you run I will open fire”.”
But Mr Tan countered, “Mr Ho also makes contradictory claims: on the one hand, that he was a victim of police intimidation, and on the other, that he was willing to turn himself in for questioning. These are contradictory and unconvincing reasons for him absconding to Malaysia.”
But in Mr Ho’s version of the events, it was different from Mr Tan’s claims.
“A few days after the police failed to find me they put up a “wanted” notice on television and in the newspapers. In the news release, they said the police just wanted to question me over the election speeches I made as a Worker’s Party candidate. They did not say anything about how they have failed to arrest me and threatened to shoot me.
“What would they do, make me confess on national TV for things that I have never done?
“If the police only wanted to question me, why didn’t they just send me a letter or inform the Workers Party that they needed to talk to me about the election speeches I made? I would have responded to a civilised request.
<ins id="aswift_1_expand" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: currentColor; width: 336px; height: 280px; display: inline-table; visibility: visible; position: relative; background-color: transparent; border-image: none;"><ins id="aswift_1_anchor" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: currentColor; width: 336px; height: 280px; display: block; visibility: visible; position: relative; background-color: transparent; border-image: none;"><iframe name="aswift_1" width="336" height="280" id="aswift_1" frameBorder="0" marginWidth="0" marginHeight="0" scrolling="no" vspace="0" hspace="0" allowfullscreen="true" style="left: 0px; top: 0px; position: absolute;" allowTransparency="true"></iframe></ins></ins>
Mr Ho said, “the government accused me of running away from Singapore immediately after the general elections as I knew I had committed an offence during the elections.
“It was totally untrue.”
“In fact, I did not leave Singapore after the General Elections. I went back to work and conducted my day to day life as usual.”
Mr Tan also took aimed with how Mr Ho had left Singapore.
“Mr Tan ran away from Singapore on a … flimsy excuse: his alleged fear that “accidents” would occur to him in National Service… He entered UK using his expired Singapore passport with a forged extension endorsement.”
To that, Mr Ho said, “The only reason I did not apply for an exit permit to leave Singapore and did not have my passport extended by the authorities was because I acted under duress as the police threatened to shoot me and the government accused me of crimes I did not commit.
“Would you not flee if a gun was pointed at you?
The exchange between Mr Ho and Mr Tan comes after the government banned Ms Tan’s film, claiming that the film was a threat to national security.
In Mr Tan’s letter, he repeatedly said that his claims are “facts” and “statements” that are put on “public record”.
However, Mr Ho was speaking from his own personal experience.
Mr Ho said, “I was an opposition candidate acting with his social conscience.”
“We all want a true and fair democratic, stable and prosperous society. Rather than see our people pursuing each other with knives to our backs, I prefer to see us all working together side by side for a country that is democratic and caring, with a strong economy, effective national defence, and a first world parliamentary system.”
In a letter that Mr Ho had written in 2010, he said, “I am nobody and am just like anyone of you who cares and loves our Singapore. Do I deserve such treatment?”
Speaking of his experience of having been forced into exile, Mr Ho also said, “if you look at the series of events over the last 33 years you will realise that it is more about they and their desperate attempts to deny a past parliamentary candidate from ever again participating in open parliamentary politics in a cowardice way.”
