Asia in brief Singapore loses long-time political fighter
Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 06, 2008
A man who embodied the best of what Singapore could become has died after decades of persecution by the government dominated by founding father and "Minister Mentor" Lee Kwan Yew.
Joshua B. Jeyaretnam, died last week of heart failure, aged 82. Ironically Jeyaretnam died soon after the Lee family chalked up another victory in the legal tactic that has served it so well as a method of silencing opposition.
The Singapore High Court ruled that the famed Far Eastern Economic Review magazine and its editor Hugo Restall defamed Lee and his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in an interview with another Singaporean opposition politician, Chee Soon Juan. The article noted the great success the Lee family has had in bringing libel suits against opposition leaders. Damages are then awarded at a level that makes the defendant bankrupt and therefore ineligible to run for parliament.
This was defamatory, said the judge, because it suggested corruption. Jeyaretnam was a highly successful and wealthy lawyer in Singapore when he entered politics as leader of the Workers' Party, in reality a social democratic outfit, in 1971. He soon fell foul of the Lee libel tactic and after a speech he made in 1976 had to sell his house and most of his possessions to pay damages.
Over the years he was repeatedly sued and made bankrupt by leaders of Lee's People's Action Party. But Jeyaretnam stuck to his guns and was the only opposition MP elected to parliament in 1981. He was elected again in 1984 and in 1997. But the hounding continued and in 1986 he was convicted of mishandling party funds.
This conviction was conclusively overturned by the British Privy Council in London and labelled "a grievous injustice." Jeyaretnam was again convicted of libel and made bankrupt in 2001. He paid off that debt last year and his last act was to defend, unsuccessfully as one might expect, Chee Soon Juan against a libel suit brought by Minister Mentor Lee.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
Vancouver Sun
Monday, October 06, 2008
A man who embodied the best of what Singapore could become has died after decades of persecution by the government dominated by founding father and "Minister Mentor" Lee Kwan Yew.
Joshua B. Jeyaretnam, died last week of heart failure, aged 82. Ironically Jeyaretnam died soon after the Lee family chalked up another victory in the legal tactic that has served it so well as a method of silencing opposition.
The Singapore High Court ruled that the famed Far Eastern Economic Review magazine and its editor Hugo Restall defamed Lee and his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in an interview with another Singaporean opposition politician, Chee Soon Juan. The article noted the great success the Lee family has had in bringing libel suits against opposition leaders. Damages are then awarded at a level that makes the defendant bankrupt and therefore ineligible to run for parliament.
This was defamatory, said the judge, because it suggested corruption. Jeyaretnam was a highly successful and wealthy lawyer in Singapore when he entered politics as leader of the Workers' Party, in reality a social democratic outfit, in 1971. He soon fell foul of the Lee libel tactic and after a speech he made in 1976 had to sell his house and most of his possessions to pay damages.
Over the years he was repeatedly sued and made bankrupt by leaders of Lee's People's Action Party. But Jeyaretnam stuck to his guns and was the only opposition MP elected to parliament in 1981. He was elected again in 1984 and in 1997. But the hounding continued and in 1986 he was convicted of mishandling party funds.
This conviction was conclusively overturned by the British Privy Council in London and labelled "a grievous injustice." Jeyaretnam was again convicted of libel and made bankrupt in 2001. He paid off that debt last year and his last act was to defend, unsuccessfully as one might expect, Chee Soon Juan against a libel suit brought by Minister Mentor Lee.
© The Vancouver Sun 2008
