Nearly two years after Singapore’s Media Development Agency pushed through regulations putting a tight leash on Internet journalism, the authority has shut down its first news site, called The Real Singapore.
For good measure, the government charged the site’s editors, Singaporean Yang Kaiheng and his Australian girlfriend Ai Takagi, with seven counts of sedition and other charges for allegedly printing racially inflammatory and inaccurate stories. Local Singaporeans, however, told Asia Sentinel that the stories were hardly inflammatory enough to warrant the charges and potential fines up to S$200,000 [US$150,330] and speculated that the authorities were setting out to make an example of the website in the light of other incidents including a 16-year-old who insulted the memory of Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s founder, who died on March 22, and a blogger who insulted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s integrity. The Real Singapore, the sources say, has become the platform for a flock of good-quality bloggers who aren’t afraid to be critical of the government.
“Singapore’s licensing system for online news services was designed from the start for this type of censorship and harassment,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “We call on the Media Development Authority to repeal its suspension order of The Real Singapore, drop all of the charges against its editors, and allow the website to continue its journalistic work free of threats or reprisal.”
The Real Singapore is the first news website to be shut down under Singapore’s licensing regulations, introduced in 2013, according to CPJ research although the Media Development Authority has gone after other non-news sites. Last year it shut an innocuous fledgling called the Breakfast Network that was run by Bertha Henson, a former journalist with Singapore Press Holdings who now is a journalist in residence at a local college while acting as a media consultant. Full story...
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For good measure, the government charged the site’s editors, Singaporean Yang Kaiheng and his Australian girlfriend Ai Takagi, with seven counts of sedition and other charges for allegedly printing racially inflammatory and inaccurate stories. Local Singaporeans, however, told Asia Sentinel that the stories were hardly inflammatory enough to warrant the charges and potential fines up to S$200,000 [US$150,330] and speculated that the authorities were setting out to make an example of the website in the light of other incidents including a 16-year-old who insulted the memory of Lee Kuan Yew, the country’s founder, who died on March 22, and a blogger who insulted Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s integrity. The Real Singapore, the sources say, has become the platform for a flock of good-quality bloggers who aren’t afraid to be critical of the government.
“Singapore’s licensing system for online news services was designed from the start for this type of censorship and harassment,” said Shawn Crispin, CPJ’s senior Southeast Asia representative. “We call on the Media Development Authority to repeal its suspension order of The Real Singapore, drop all of the charges against its editors, and allow the website to continue its journalistic work free of threats or reprisal.”
The Real Singapore is the first news website to be shut down under Singapore’s licensing regulations, introduced in 2013, according to CPJ research although the Media Development Authority has gone after other non-news sites. Last year it shut an innocuous fledgling called the Breakfast Network that was run by Bertha Henson, a former journalist with Singapore Press Holdings who now is a journalist in residence at a local college while acting as a media consultant. Full story...
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