Singapore considers " no-censorship zone"

What’s the best way to encourage the fledgling arts scene in Singapore and help the city-state’s quest to become Southeast Asia’s answer to Broadway or the West End – besides, of course, spending hundreds of millions of dollars of state money on the arts? Here’s one idea, according to a new government task force: End censorship, though only in “designated areas.”

The Arts and Culture Strategic Review, tasked by Singapore’s government to encourage the arts and track the country’s cultural development until 2025, released a report Monday that offered a hundred or so recommendations aimed at improving the vibrancy of the city-state’s growing arts scene. Among them was a suggestion to “relax rules and regulations” governing artistic expression at designated areas and times, including removing the need for licenses for street performances.

Even more potentially-controversial for a state that once banned certain types of performance art, the report explored the idea of going further and setting up “no censorship zones” for the arts, which could result in the creation of areas similar to Singapore’s famous Speakers Corner, the only place where protests are allowed in the state. The idea would be to create areas where censorship is abandoned in favor of creativity and free expression. Full story...

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