From: jonathon <grafolog@netcom.com>
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 1996 02:14:01 +0800
To: James Seng <jseng@pobox.org.sg>
Subject: Re: Encourage Singapore To Come Out Of the Stone Age
In-Reply-To: <199609020913.TAA11331@jagumba.anu.edu.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.SUN.3.95.960902144238.16072E-100000@netcom13>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Mon, 2 Sep 1996, James Seng wrote:

> You dont go to jail for writing articles. You might be sue for deframation
> if you published something untrue (similar to your civil lawsuit i guess?)

	So what happens if somebody in Singapore publishes a list of 
	Singaporians who beat up Chinese immigrants  the previous week.
	
> and have to pay large sum of money to the person but you dont go to jail.

	If the person who publishes the list of Singaporians who beat up
	Chinese immigrants the previous week is not in jail for publishing
	that, then what is he in jail for?  The individual is publishing
	factual data, just data that the Singapore government has been
	trying very hard to keep out of the hands of the population of
	Singaporians in specific, and the world in general. 

> >a government that can keep the leader of an opposition political party
> >in jail for years just because he opposes them is pretty corrupt.
> I am not interested in politics so i didnt really know what is happening in
> that case. for that, i have no comment.

	IOW, you don't give a damm about freedom of speech -- which is
	what I suspected was the case all along.

	You're just one of those people who says pretty words, without
	meaning them.   

> Very true. So does the First Amendment said. Singapore does have such
> similar law as First Amendment which is slight "modified". You have freedom
> of speech as long as your comments does not endanger religious/racist
> harmony and national security. (I do not know the exact term..need a lawyer

	National security is a hole that makes a mockery of anything which
	allegedly protects freedom of speech.   

	The slight modification in Singapore's freedom of speech law means 
	that all speech is acceptable, so long as the writer first 
	self-censors, and secondly doesn't offend any jerks in Singapore,
	and thirdly doesn't offend any jerks in the neighbouring
	countries, and fourthly doesn't offend the current despot in
	Singapore.  << A statment which makes this message illegal to
	carry through the internet.  >>

	Still want to claim that Singapore practices freedom of speech?
	Or do you want me to start citing religious, political and
	serious literary works of merit that are prohibited under 
	Singapore's alleged freedom os speech statute, that bans any
	speech that might be controversial? 

        xan

        jonathon
        grafolog@netcom.com




	However, if you're tired of the Lesser of N evils, 
	Cthulu's export policy is that you can't escape 
	anyway, and your puny mortal lives will be absorbed 
	along with his morning coffee.  Your encryption 
	technology is futile against the Elder Gods, and the 
	arcane formulas in the Cyphernomicon of that mad 
	physicist Tim The Enchanter may summon spirits from 
	the vasty deep, but no secrets are safe from 
	Nyarla-S-Ahothep who knows all and sees all.
				Bill Stewart