Sunday, April 23, 2006 6:19 AM
in my own personal opinion, the singapore democratic party is a disgrace. they should learn that in singapore, there is no freedom of speech like in america. with freedom of speech comes responsibility. the reason why singapore does not have a split society, unrest and rioting like countries such as australia is probably largely due to a responsible press. the media is a very powerful and crucial player in a country. they have the power to stir up the people to action or to a particular viewpoint, to affect the stability and harmony of the country or in a recent case in australia, to cause a government minister to attempt suicide after a number of negative media reports on him. as the spiderman movie says, 'with great powers comes great responsibility.' sometimes in australia, the media reports reflect the views of a particular group or the editors more than anything else especially in events such as the recent sydney riots.
another reason why personally, i'm not too fond of this party is because their leader flies all over the world, opens his mouth and gives singapore a bad name. to me, this is quite childish and irresponsible.
The Prime Minister said "If we do not act and the lies and defamation are repeated throughout and in election rallies and spread around, I think the government's reputation goes down".
Foreign media have often complained about the repeated defamation and libel cases on some singapore's opposition members. According to my law notes, when someone makes a statement that has the effect of lowering a person's reputation, it has been published and there is no lawful excuse for making that statement, that someone has committed the tort of defamation. if it is a written statement, it is called libel. if oral, then slander.
to me it looks as if the government is right and justified in defending themselves.