The opposition has not dismissed the idea of using the internet to reach out to the voters on the “cooling-off” day which will be introduced in the next general election. Under the new law, the minimum campaign period will be extended from nine to ten days. All forms of mass rallies, home visits and public display of party symbols will be banned on the eve of polling day to enable voters to reflect “calmly” on their choice.

Source: The Temasek Review

Though PM Lee acknowledged that it would be difficult to enforce the law in cyberspace, he hoped the spirit and principle of the “cooling-off” period would be upheld by Internet users without elaborating on the topics they should refrain from writing or discussing.

“I can’t control several million videos on YouTube. But your website, what you are putting out in your own name, I think that should end on the day before cooling-off day,” PM Lee added.

Well, I can almost be certain that bloggers will continue to write about the campaigning and the controversies that arose in the past days.  Should the PAP refrain from using the Internet then, it will be a gross miscalculation on their part as net chatter could determine the decisions of the fence-sitters.

The web is too huge to be policed and the political costs are too huge for the PAP.  I think this ‘cooling-off day’ will benefit Singapore alright, but not as how Lee Hsien Loong intended.  It allows Singaporeans a day to consume free and adulterated information via political bloggers so that they can make the right choice in the polling booth.

I will vote for anyone who promises to take away ISA.

Arthur

A group of Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) leaders and activists were acquitted of holding a procession without a permit.
In his written judgment, District Judge John Ng noted that the [SDP] group had walked mainly on pedestrian pathways and did not attract “any significant” attention of the public.

Source: Today

I am proud to know John personally.

Arthur

[Martyn See,] filmmaker and activist was surprised to receive an email from the Tanglin Police Division requesting him to furnish the police information regarding the names of speakers and the format of the Operation Spectrum forum under the Public Entertainment and Meetings Acts.

Source: The Online Citizen

Over-zealous public servants blindly (or blindly following instruction) defending the status quo.

Recent proposals to amend the Maintenance of Parents Act suggests an act by the government to pass the buck of caring for the elderly to their children, but this puts an inconsiderable strain especially on lower-income groups.

Source: The Online Citizen

The current Singapore government has lost tons of moral reserves. The only thing that they continue to do well is to enhance its legal whip. Our children deserve something better.

Increasing the number of Non-Constituency MPs to nine, and entrenching the NMP scheme, further undermines Parliament as a representative legislature elected by the people.

Source: The Online Citizen

We are not interested in this type of “managed” electoral process so that dissent voices could be “controlled”. We want to see a fair political system whereby alternative parties can complete on fair ground (ie get rid of the GRC scheme and stop shifting electoral boundaries) and minimal barrier to entry (eg., do away with the election deposit).

Until fundamental changes could be seen (eg no ISA, stop controlling the media), transparency and accountability of the Singapore government remain, in our view, very much in doubt. We will have no other options but to do what we will be doing when we go to the ballot box.

The detainees were forced to make false confessions by the way of mental and physical torture. They were subjected to harsh and intensive interrogations, deprived of sleep and rest, some for as long as 70 hours in freezing cold rooms. All of them were stripped of their personal clothings, including spectacles, footwear and underwear and were made to change into prisoners’ uniforms.
Most of them were made to stand during interrogation for over 20 hours and under full blasts of air conditioning turned to the lowest temperature. Under those conditions, one of them was repeatedly doused with cold water. Most were hit in the face while others were assaulted on other parts of the body. Threats of indefinite detention without trial were also made to them should they continue to deny the intentions that they have been accused to harbour.

Source: The Online Citizen

ISA is for yesteryear politics. If whichever politician still insist that it is relevant for the modern days, then he should also be deleted and trashed.

We sent the following letter to The Straits Times as a matter of record. We expect them to ignore us.

Dear The Straits Times

We noted that you published on May 11, 2009 a letter titled “The GRC parallels” by Johnny Heng, who tried to draw lesson from the Aware saga and attempted to link that to the merits of the GRC system.

We are an online civic advocacy group. We have a mailing list of 148 members as at 11 May 09. One of our efforts is a petition for Tan Kin Lian to stand for public office. There are more than 1,200 signatures for the petition currently.

In our view, the GRC system is highly detrimental to the democratic development of Singapore. The GRC system, together with other electoral changes such as the constant redrawing of electoral boundaries, have introduced into the Singapore Parliament members who have not been directly voted in by the people. Because of that, some of them have become out of touch, unsympathetic, or even condescending to the very people that they are supposed to serve.

Since you have decided to reflect the views of Johnny Heng, we hope you could reflect our views which represent a lot more people.

Thank you.

Arthur Boon
civicadvocator.net

We help ourselves. Don’t expect others to help

Tom Wright painted a bleak picture of Singapore’s property sector going forward at The Wall Street Journal. His article ended with the following:
“I’m yet to see the light at the end of the tunnel [for Singapore],” says Mr. Tan, the high-end broker.
We would expect people to continue to dig the dirt and tell it to [...]



Our skin isn’t as thick as it should be

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) organised a seminar on March 4 to discuss Singapore’s political blogosphere.  Tan Tarn How, Senior Research Fellow and Research Assistant Tan Simin presented their paper on trends observed in the blogosphere.  As reported in the TOC, the researchers identified the following limitations:

The online-offline firewall, while somewhat alleviated by offline [...]



Singapore and Lee Kuan Yew – The answer to the African problem?

Recently, I followed a thread “Democracy and Economic Growth” which started in PoliticsForum.org.   Apparently, members there often question the role of democracy in a developing nation. “During the wave of democratization in Africa during the 90s, many people had renewed hope for the continent, immediately equating newly established democracies to economic growth. Are these democracies [...]



Tell Singapore government: Ask them a question or give a suggestion

We informed people about the “Tell Singapore Government” subsite and have received some interesting reaction at some forums.
See: 3in1 Kopitiam, Sam’s Alfresco Coffee, Singapore Kopitiam, SgForums
Our responses to some of the comments are listed below. If we are not answering some other specific questions, that is because we do not know how.
 

Petitions

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I don’t know

Our Singapore

As seen by people

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• Purpose

To observe, analyse, present our position, and call for action. Read our articles, give your views, and learn together with us.