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Coffeeshop Chit Chat - The unexpected cost of free speech</TD><TD id=msgunetc noWrap align=right>
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The unexpected cost of free speech
<!--subtitle--><!--byline-->By Matthew Artz
The Argus
<!--date-->Posted: 12/15/2008 04:33:05 PM PST
<!--secondary date-->Updated: 12/16/2008 06:35:57 AM PST
FREMONT — One week doesn't matter much to most people, but it could end up being the difference between prosperity and poverty for Gopalan Nair.
If the Fremont immigration attorney and Singaporean dissident had just waited seven days before posting a blog entry accusing a high court judge of "prostituting herself" in a sedition case against an opposition leader, he would have been back in the United States and out of reach of Singaporean authorities.
He never would have been arrested, interrogated or strip-searched. He never would have been detained for four months, nor jailed for two more.
He never would have lost his legal clients, maxed out his credit cards, missed a mortgage payment or spent Thanksgiving at the Islander Motel.
In standing up for free speech in his native Singapore, Nair, 58, unwittingly thrust himself into a personal economic crisis.
He left for Singapore on May 26, a successful immigration attorney who had more than a dozen clients, a five-bedroom house and, in good years, an annual income of more than $100,000.
He returned six months later crippled with debt.
While detained in Singapore, Nair couldn't pay his mortgage, his office rent or any of his utility bills. He had to take cash advances on his credit cards to pay for the $150 per week room he was renting while awaiting trial on charges of sedition and disorderly conduct.
Whatever money he had in his checking account went toward unemployment benefits for his law clerk, whom he had to let go while stranded in Singapore.
Money has become so tight for Nair that a former client loaned him funds to get his office phone hooked up again. When he arrived back in the Bay Area the day before Thanksgiving, the father of his former clerk put him up at the Islander Motel for two days because the water and electricity had been shut off at his house.
"In some ways, I am more scared now" than in Singapore, Nair said sitting behind his office desk last week. "I have to get back on my feet. I have to get this going again."
Nair, who is divorced, has three children in their 20s living in Los Angeles and New York. He spent most of his life in Singapore, the Southeast Asian city-state of 4.5 million people that has grown considerably wealthier in recent decades — but no freer, he said.
Nair said he despises the one-party rule of Lee Kuan Yew, and sees himself as a prominent dissident in a civil liberties movement that hasn't yet posed a major threat to one-party rule.
He had arrived in the country on May 26 to witness the sedition trial. Three days later, he wrote the blog entry accusing the judge in the case, Belinda Ang, of being a government crony. In the same entry, Nair went so far as to give the address of the hotel at which he was staying and challenged the nation's longtime ruler to sue him "for calling him nothing more than a small-time street bully."
Sure enough, Nair was arrested May 31. The police detained him for six days, seized his American passport and then made him pay his own way for several months before he finally was sentenced to three months in jail on the sedition charge. He was freed after serving two months.
In Singapore, his case became major news, albeit always written from the government's perspective, Nair said.
But now, back on American soil, Nair is just another homeowner facing potential foreclosure. His financial problems are tied to having taken out too much equity on his home in San Jose, said Nair, who estimates that he owes about $100,000 and is trying to refinance his mortgage.
His office landlord has let him delay rent payments, he said, but he still needs to quickly rebuild his practice.
Immigration attorneys usually have to go out in search of clients. Nair, however, is still busy getting his life back in order and says he doesn't have the money to hire another clerk to handle calls while he's visiting community centers and churches.
The most prominent pile on his desk is a stack of bills and bank statements that he still needs to sort through.
"I realize I've got to do all these things," said Nair, who still has more mail waiting for him at the post office. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed."
He said he never expected to get arrested for his blog post. He belonged to an opposition party while practicing law in Singapore and had said other unkind things about the government that never landed him in jail.
But for all he's lost, Nair said he still wouldn't have waited that precious week in order to say his piece from the safety of his San Jose home.
"I was trying to say, 'The hell with you. You think you can abuse the laws and do whatever you want, and you don't expect people to complain?' " Nair said.
"If I had come back and then did it, it wouldn't have had the same effect," he said. "Doing it there showed more courage."
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The unexpected cost of free speech
<!--subtitle--><!--byline-->By Matthew Artz
The Argus
<!--date-->Posted: 12/15/2008 04:33:05 PM PST
<!--secondary date-->Updated: 12/16/2008 06:35:57 AM PST
FREMONT — One week doesn't matter much to most people, but it could end up being the difference between prosperity and poverty for Gopalan Nair.
If the Fremont immigration attorney and Singaporean dissident had just waited seven days before posting a blog entry accusing a high court judge of "prostituting herself" in a sedition case against an opposition leader, he would have been back in the United States and out of reach of Singaporean authorities.
He never would have been arrested, interrogated or strip-searched. He never would have been detained for four months, nor jailed for two more.
He never would have lost his legal clients, maxed out his credit cards, missed a mortgage payment or spent Thanksgiving at the Islander Motel.
In standing up for free speech in his native Singapore, Nair, 58, unwittingly thrust himself into a personal economic crisis.
He left for Singapore on May 26, a successful immigration attorney who had more than a dozen clients, a five-bedroom house and, in good years, an annual income of more than $100,000.
He returned six months later crippled with debt.
While detained in Singapore, Nair couldn't pay his mortgage, his office rent or any of his utility bills. He had to take cash advances on his credit cards to pay for the $150 per week room he was renting while awaiting trial on charges of sedition and disorderly conduct.
Whatever money he had in his checking account went toward unemployment benefits for his law clerk, whom he had to let go while stranded in Singapore.
Money has become so tight for Nair that a former client loaned him funds to get his office phone hooked up again. When he arrived back in the Bay Area the day before Thanksgiving, the father of his former clerk put him up at the Islander Motel for two days because the water and electricity had been shut off at his house.
"In some ways, I am more scared now" than in Singapore, Nair said sitting behind his office desk last week. "I have to get back on my feet. I have to get this going again."
Nair, who is divorced, has three children in their 20s living in Los Angeles and New York. He spent most of his life in Singapore, the Southeast Asian city-state of 4.5 million people that has grown considerably wealthier in recent decades — but no freer, he said.
Nair said he despises the one-party rule of Lee Kuan Yew, and sees himself as a prominent dissident in a civil liberties movement that hasn't yet posed a major threat to one-party rule.
He had arrived in the country on May 26 to witness the sedition trial. Three days later, he wrote the blog entry accusing the judge in the case, Belinda Ang, of being a government crony. In the same entry, Nair went so far as to give the address of the hotel at which he was staying and challenged the nation's longtime ruler to sue him "for calling him nothing more than a small-time street bully."
Sure enough, Nair was arrested May 31. The police detained him for six days, seized his American passport and then made him pay his own way for several months before he finally was sentenced to three months in jail on the sedition charge. He was freed after serving two months.
In Singapore, his case became major news, albeit always written from the government's perspective, Nair said.
But now, back on American soil, Nair is just another homeowner facing potential foreclosure. His financial problems are tied to having taken out too much equity on his home in San Jose, said Nair, who estimates that he owes about $100,000 and is trying to refinance his mortgage.
His office landlord has let him delay rent payments, he said, but he still needs to quickly rebuild his practice.
Immigration attorneys usually have to go out in search of clients. Nair, however, is still busy getting his life back in order and says he doesn't have the money to hire another clerk to handle calls while he's visiting community centers and churches.
The most prominent pile on his desk is a stack of bills and bank statements that he still needs to sort through.
"I realize I've got to do all these things," said Nair, who still has more mail waiting for him at the post office. "I'm keeping my fingers crossed."
He said he never expected to get arrested for his blog post. He belonged to an opposition party while practicing law in Singapore and had said other unkind things about the government that never landed him in jail.
But for all he's lost, Nair said he still wouldn't have waited that precious week in order to say his piece from the safety of his San Jose home.
"I was trying to say, 'The hell with you. You think you can abuse the laws and do whatever you want, and you don't expect people to complain?' " Nair said.
"If I had come back and then did it, it wouldn't have had the same effect," he said. "Doing it there showed more courage."
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