Thursday, May 22, 2014

Singapore: Blogger targeted by prime minister...

Singaporean blogger Roy Ngerng has become the latest critic of the government to receive a lawyer’s letter.

Through his lawyer Davinder Singh, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is accusing Ngerng of having made defamatory statements in one of his blog posts. He is demanding that Ngerng take down the post, make an apology and pay him damages. The amount of damages he is asking for is not yet clear.

For critics, commentators and political opponents of the PAP government – the People’s Action Party having been the ruling party in Singapore since 1959 – the threat today is not assassination or getting beaten up by hired thugs, a danger faced by critics and journalists in many other countries. The threat comes instead in the form of lawyer’s letters and lawsuits.

Ngerng’s blog post, entitled “Where your CPF Money is Going: Learning from the City Harvest Trial”, had drawn parallels between Lee, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and the management of the Central Provident Fund (CPF, the state pension fund) and the ongoing trial over Singaporean mega-church City Harvest Church’s alleged misappropriation of funds.

He went on to ask questions about the handling of both the state pension and sovereign wealth funds. Full story...

Related post:
  1. World's highest paid prime minister demands that blogger pays his legal fees...
  2. Singapore's Lee Hsien Loong is the world's highest paid politician...
  3. Singapore: Escalating restrictions on Internet expression...
  4. The exotic world of Singapore journalism...
  5. Singapore struggles to control cyberspace...

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