Singapore judiciary examined: the conviction of Alan Shadrake

Gievn Enough Rope

by Liz Gooch
posted on May 01, 2011 by South China Morning Post
(source)

(Extract)

The trial and conviction of Alan Shadrake, author of a book that questions the way Singapore deploys the death penalty, has done nothing for the Lion City’s reputation.



Shadrake’s book, which began as the memoirs of a hangman, morphed into an investigation of the system. Once A Jolly Hangman was first released in Malaysia, where Shadrake was living, last June. It was already available in some Singaporean bookshops when he returned to the city for the launch, on July 17, 2010.

The Saturday night book launch went smoothly and Shadrake went out afterwards, to celebrate with friends, first at a dim sum restaurant and then a karaoke bar. He went to bed at about 2.30am but there was to be no Sunday morning lie-in. At 6.30am, he says, he awoke to police banging on the door.

“I opened the door very, very slowly and they burst in like bloody commandos. Four of them to arrest little me … like I was a terrorist or something.”

The police ordered him to get dressed and took him to the Criminal Investigation Department building.

There, he says, he slept on the floor, without a blanket or pillow, in between long sessions of questioning. He was released on S$10,000 bail just before midnight on the Monday, without his passport.

[Details of police action during the arrest: here]

In his verdict, the judge found that Shadrake’s claims were made against a “selective background of truths and half-truths and sometimes outright falsehoods”. Although Shadrake admits to a couple of inaccuracies – “very minor stuff” – which, he says, he has corrected for the new edition, he stands by the book and has refused to apologise.

In statements released after Shadrake’s sentencing in November, Reporters Without Borders (RWB) said it “deplores the decision to jail a man who is 76 and unwell, and whose only crime was to exercise his critical powers”, while John Kampfer, chief executive of Index on Censorship, described the case as “another example of Singapore’s very poor record on free expression”.

Jeremy Browne, minister of state at Britain’s Foreign Office, also weighed into the case, stating he was “dismayed” that Shadrake had been sentenced to six weeks’ jail “for expressing his personal views on the legal system”.

Shadrake says he knew his book was likely to cause a few ripples but he thought he would be merely barred from Singapore, not arrested.

M. Ravi, Shadrake’s lawyer and a leading human rights advocate who has represented a number of people facing the death penalty, says the sentence is among the toughest ever meted out by a Singaporean court for contempt.

“To me, it’s extremely harsh,” says Ravi, who argued during the trial that his client’s book amounted to “fair criticism”. Although he expects Shadrake’s appeal will be denied, Ravi says the authorities have shot themselves in the foot by convicting the author.

“They popularised this,” Ravi says. “The client became magnified as a result of their own prosecution against him.”

The book has not been banned in Singapore but has been withdrawn from bookshops.

Media freedom organisations, such as RWB, say there has been a number of cases in recent years where the government has taken legal action against media organisations, journalists and bloggers. In 2008, The Wall Street Journal Asia was found to be in contempt of court and fined S$25,000 for publishing two editorials and a letter by an opposition leader questioning the country’s judicial system. The same year, lawyer Gopalan Nair was sentenced to three months in prison for insulting a judge on his blog.

In the listing for last year, Singapore dropped four places on RWB’s Press Freedom Index, down to 137 out of the 178 countries ranked according to the degree of freedom afforded to journalists. This places Singapore behind countries such as Zimbabwe, Algeria and Qatar.

“No one should be convicted of a crime simply because he or she wrote a book that speaks out against a political ideology that the Singaporean government, or any government, doesn’t agree with,” says Heather Blake, RWB’s British representative. “The mentality is that they provide a very safe, clean country in which to live but with that comes all of the oppression.”

Commentators say a culture of self-censorship has developed among local mainstream publications, prompting more Singaporeans to turn to the internet for information and to voice their opinions. Sinapan Samydorai, director of Think Centre, a Singapore-based civil society-focused group, says Singaporeans are increasingly aware of the international trend towards abolishing the death penalty.

“Shadrake is inspiring young people,” he says. “I think that is what they don’t want but, with the internet and in a globalised world, it’s difficult for them.”

Dissatisfaction with the mainstream media led Andrew Loh and three friends to establish the website The Online Citizen, in 2006. Loh, the site’s editor-in-chief, says the website provides a forum for discussion of political and social issues.

“We just wanted to express ourselves,” he says.

Loh says the site’s online readership has increased in recent years, as more people go online to get “the other side of the story”.

The website, which is run by volunteers, has not escaped the glare of the authorities. Loh says it was gazetted as a political association in January, meaning it must adhere to certain regulations such as not accepting foreign funding.

“I see that as some sort of an attempt to force us to either close down or to self-censor,” he says.

Although he believes the mainstream media has devoted more coverage than usual to opposition parties in the lead-up to Saturday’s election, Loh maintains that censorship has increased.

“I don’t think space for freedom of expression has been enlarged.” he says. “I think it has been curtailed in recent years.”

The Singapore Ministry of Law disagrees.

“There are 5,500 publications, foreign newspapers and magazines in free circulation in Singapore, with nearly 200 correspondents from 72 foreign media organisations based [here],” according to a statement issued by the ministry. “They are free to report on all issues; the government does not dictate … what they can or cannot report. However, media freedom in a healthy democracy cannot mean we should allow and tolerate lies, smears and scurrilous allegations. [When] this has happened, the media and reporters responsible have been sued for civil defamation.”

Shadrake, who was convicted of contempt of court, is “assisting the police with investigations relating to criminal defamation”, says the ministry.

*****

Shadrake believes it is only a matter of time before he will be behind bars – the outcome of his appeal may even have been announced as you read this. He says he will refuse to pay the fine, if it is demanded, even though that will result in an additional two weeks in prison.

Shadrake, who has received funding from supporters and human rights organisations to help cover his legal and medical bills, says he does not want to go to jail, but one can’t help thinking that a stint behind bars would provide rich material for the book he is planning to write about his trial – not to mention the publicity it would generate.

“If they want to put me in jail for this, then that’s their problem and that will come back to hurt them. I’m a very popular guy,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve got the whole world behind me.”

Shadrake admits his trial has helped promote his book. A new edition will be released in Australia today and in Britain next month. It is also available online.

“If they had just ignored it, no one would have given it a second thought,” he says. “I was nobody, now I’m somebody. And it is ridiculous because I don’t like this role … I’m a reporter, I’m not an object of reporters.”

Regardless of the outcome of his appeal, Shadrake plans to keep up his campaign against the death penalty. He believes at least 36 people are on death row in Singapore, based on his discussions with lawyers involved in such cases.

Singapore's Mandatory Death Penalty for Drug Possession

Singapore's Mandatory Death Penalty for Drug Possession: the case of Yong Vui Kong:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jBagQWcxhc&feature=bf_prev&list=PL4A4528F775CF4E70&index=5

Suppressing dissent in Singapore: Human Rights Watch's World Report 2011

Quoting Human Rights Watch on Singapore in 2010:

In November 2010 British author and journalist Alan Shadrake (Wikipedia) was found guilty on charges of "scandalizing the judiciary" and sentenced to  six weeks in jail in addition to a fine and court costs. He claimed in his book, Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock (reviewed here), that Singapore's mandatory death penalty for murder, treason, and some 20 drug trafficking-related offenses is not being applied as equitably as the government contends. Shadrake's book concludes that the judicial process is subject to political and economic pressures, including from the ruling party, and biased against the "weak," "poor," or "less-educated." During the trial, the prosecution warned media outlets that publicizing Shadrake's allegations could lead to charges against them.

Government authorities continue to closely regulate public meetings, demonstrations, and processions. In May 2010 Vincent Cheng (Wikipedia), held under the Internal Security Act in 1987 as the alleged leader of a Marxist conspiracy, agreed for the first time to speak publicly about his treatment in detention at a seminar, Singapore's History: Who Writes the Script, organized by students from the History Society of the National University of Singapore. The National Library Board, the venue's sponsor, however, rescinded the invitation and the event went ahead without Cheng's participation.

A lower court's 2009 acquittal of three leaders and two supporters of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) charged with conducting a procession without a permit became in 2010 yet another setback for free assembly when a high court reversed the decision on appeal. Siok Chin Chee, a member of the central committee of the SDP, was sentenced to five short jail terms in 2010 for distributing political flyers without a permit.

(Comments on Singapore's human rights)

Singapore Police in action: The great escape of a terrorist, the great capture of a critic

Though utterly incompetent in the Mas Selamat saga (read the excellent Mr Brown), the Singapore police are excellent at apprehending and harassing Alan Shadrake, a 76 year old critic of the Singapore judiciary.

Suppressing dissent in Singapore: The jailings of Gopalan Nair and Alan Shadrake

A recent parallel with Alan Shadrake is Gopalan Nair, a lawyer and critic of the Singapore judiciary, jailed in Singapore in September 2008 for expressing his views in his blog.

Such suppression of free thoughts and their free expression is the most infuriating and contemptible action of a big bully.

The respected Foreign Policy magazine (Washington, DC. May 07, 2010 issue)  listed Gopalan Nair, formerly of Singapore, among the "World's Top Dissidents", in the company of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma, Simar Samer of Afghanistan, Arnold Tsunga of Zimbabwe, Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, and Shirin Ebadi of Iran.

This is what Foreign Policy said about Gopalan Nair:

Gopalan Nair, a former opposition politician, is known throughout Singapore's embattled blogosphere for his fierce promotion of human rights and blunt criticism of founding leader and current "minister mentor" Lee Kuan Yew. In September 2008, Nair was sentenced to three months in jail for defaming a judge in a blog entry. On March 6, he published a hoax post on his blog indicating that Lee had suffered a heart attack and had been brought to Singapore General Hospital. Nair's motive? It was, he says, "a deliberate attempt to highlight how tenuous Singapore really is, with all power in the island vested in one man, and the dire consequences to the island of his parting. And especially so as [Lee] is 87." Nair lives in California and has been a U.S. citizen since 2004.

Foreign Policy article

Gopalan Nair's blog

Video interview (YouTube) on his arrest and trial in Singapore for blogging

Suppressing dissent in Singapore: The Arrest of Alan Shadrake

(Source: The Online Citizen)

In view of the bail bond of $80,000 likely to be imposed on Alan Shadrake and the strenuous objection by the Attorney General’s Chamber, the British author has decided not to apply to leave Singapore. Instead, he reveals in Court today his intention to take legal action against Singapore in the European courts for malicious prosecution.

The following is a transcript of Alan Shadrake’s affidavit filed in Court in the afternoon of Dec 2, 2010.



I, Alan Shadrake do solemnly and sincerely affirm and say as follows:-

1.  I am the Respondent in these proceedings.

2.  The matters deposed to herein are true and where they are, based on documents in my possession, they are true to my best information, knowledge and belief.

3.  I crave leave to reply to Kwok Charn Kong’s affidavit filed or 30 November 2010.

4.  According to my mobile phone, the time of my arrest was 6.30am on the morning of Sunday, July 18. I had got to sleep about three hours earlier at around 3.30am. The next thing I was aware of was hearing a series of loud bangs on my hotel room door with shouts of ‘open up, this is the police.’ When I staggered to the door still half asleep four men in plain clothes barged into the room. One was holding an envelope and he told me he had a warrant for my arrest. When I asked why he replied ‘For illegal communication’ and when I asked what that meant he said he would explain later. Then they all started ransacking the room, pulling off bed-sheets, looking under the bed and in the wardrobe and drawers and at the same time I was harassed to get dressed quickly and pack my belongings.

5. I wanted to shower but they refused to let me do this and would not let me use the bathroom with the door closed. They gave me only enough time to pee and clean my teeth, I was not allowed to shave or shower. This constant bullying harassment went on all the time until I had packed all my possessions. My two mobile phones and my passport were taken from me at the same time. I did not take my prescription drugs, as Mr Kwok claims – he was not there anyway -because with a combination of three I have to take one of them in particular with food. It was too early anyway. I usually take the first batch around 9am at breakfast.

6.  I was then bundled down the stairs to a side entrance where a car was waiting and I sat between two officers on the back seat. At police HQ I was taken to room on the 18th floor. All my possessions were taken from me including my wallet, credit cards, cash, and laid out on a table in front of me. All the items were photographed and then I was photographed. After this I was taken to a cell and had to sit or lie on a concrete floor. If Mr. Kwok says I was able to sleep for a total of 9 hours during my almost two day stay there, he is wrong. I could not sleep at all. I was given some cold rice and soggy vegetable and a cup of some liquid which might have been coffee. Shortly after, I was taken to see the doctor who examined me. I was then escorted back to my cell. A little later a guard came to the cell, handcuffed me and took me to a room where my prescription drugs were being held. There I was supervised taking the Morning combination: Norvasc, Co-Approval and Coversyl. All this time I was wearing only a pair of briefs, light trousers and a thin T-Shirt. My belt, shoes and socks also had to be surrendered.

7.  Later that morning, possibly around 10am, I was taken to an ‘interview’ room and told to sit at a table under an air vent. I immediately felt a jet of cold air down the back of my neck. Officer Kwek came into the room and introduced himself as the investigating officer. He gave me three envelopes containing papers outlining three charges against me arising from my book Once a Jolly Hangman. I noticed that he was warmly dressed with his zip-up jacket collar turned up. He then began asking questions concerning some of the statements I made in the book. He told me I could make changes and I understood that if any errors had been made that this would entail one complete statement with the errors removed. But later he said all the statements – errors or not – would be printed as one and that I would not be able to have a copy. The questioning went on all day with normal breaks. The total time each day was approximately ten hours. I did not say in the Affidavit that I was starved or prevented from using the toilet but that this whole ordeal was brutal and uncivilized. Lord Anthony Lester, a human rights lawyer in London, told me during a telephone call after my release that it reminded him of a famous book The Trial and described my questioning as ‘Kafkaesque’. This is a term similar to ‘Orwellian’ – from ‘l984′ the futuristic book. by George Orwell – about authoritarian societies based on Machiavellian principles and techniques and which I understand are not – surprisingly – banned in, Singapore, (perhaps they are used as police text books), but the techniques – the use of fear and threats – appear to be thriving as they did in the Middle Ages.

8.  I must also repeat that if I were a dangerous terrorist with bombs and guns in my suitcase, an armed bank robber or money launderer I would not be in a position to complain. I am a 76 year old writer – and people of my age usually have all kinds of ailments. My medical problems concern my long term heart disease and my risk of developing colon cancer again – twice so far over the past eight years. In August I underwent a colonoscopy procedure at Gleneagles Hospital. Ten days later I almost bled to death in the street – the result of something going wrong with the operation. Had I not been rushed to the emergency ward I would have collapsed and died before anyone would know the cause. A doctor and nurse at Gleneagles said had I arrived half an hour later, it would have been too late. This is just one example of the stress this persecution has caused me over the past four months. Someone should have used their common sense when planning my arrest. It could have been done in a very civilized manner especially as Singapore continually proclaims itself to be a civilized, ‘First World’ country. If not as strong as I am, I could very likely have had a heart attack there and then that morning.

9. Concerning the timing of my arrest, the Straits Times published a report issued by the CID that I was arrested at 8.30am. Mr. Kwok says it was 7.40am. I say it was 6.30am and I will stick to my version of what time it was. I was there and I have no reason to change the time – as it seems the CID now has.

After almost two days in custody either lying on a concrete floor or being interrogated, I was released on bail at close on midnight having at that late hour to find a hotel which would admit me, without a passport. I did not surrender this document as a condition of bail, as it had already been confiscated along with all my other possessions. The bail was also conditional that I returned to continue the interrogations every day. At the same time I had to change hotels almost everyday. I was not given any special time to do this and the pressure on me to ‘cooperate’ continued until my lawyer M Ravi complained to Officer Kwek and sent him my medical reports which explained the many procedures I was undergoing and about to undergo to ensure my heart condition stabilized. This was successful after being prescribed four special heart muscle strengthening vitamins and an additional blood thinner.

10.  This ordeal continued until Friday morning when I decided to see my GP at Silver Cross Clinic, Bukit Timah, where I used to live. I was extremely fatigued and had worrying chest pains. After various tests and reading my six year record on the clinic’s database, she made an appointment for me to see my long-term cardiologist, Dr. Peter Yan, at Gleneagies Hospital. My GP and Dr. Yan recommended that the interrogations should stop until my heart condition was under control. He put me through many tests, including an MRI, a 24-hour heart monitor, and two treadmill tests. At one stage he described my heart beat as being ‘all over the place.’ He prescribed four special heart strengthening vitamins plus an additional blood-thinner which, together with my five prescription drugs, at a cost of $800.00 per month. The total medical costs involving four doctors and specialists at Gleneagles and Mount E hospitals total almost $15,000 which has caused an overdraft at my bank.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the ordeal I was put through – and which is continuing unabated as far as the AG’s Chambers is concerned – has had a deleterious effect on my general health. I have in my possession four finisher’s medals for half marathons in Singapore – all of which were completed in less than three hours. Today I can hardly walk 500 meters without feeling thoroughly fatigued. This confirms my belief that the barbaric ordeal I have been put through has had a very serious effect on my health and that a pacemaker and double angioplasty should be obtained as soon as possible.

11.  However, once I felt more comfortable and relaxed after the medical treatment which stabilized my heart condition, I twice suggested to Officer Kwek that if he wanted to continue with interrogations I would be willing to cooperate provided they were not long and exhausting as before. He referred me to my lawyer M. Ravi I did not say at any time that Officer Kwek behaved in an uncivilized manner towards me. I was referring to the barbaric method of arresting me at dawn, harassing me to get dressed and packed, put in a cell for almost two days unable to shower or shave and with only a concrete floor to sleep on. In addition to this I found it extremely uncomfortable sitting under a cold jet of air from the vent – deliberately, I have since been told – which is one of the Machiavellian methods used to undermine the morale of those under being interrogated. When I complained, Officer Kwek allowed me to sit at the end of the table away from the air vent. However, the room was still very cold and uncomfortable. To say that I was allowed to have toilet breaks and given refreshments at intervals, however, is rather strange. I thought eating and relieving oneself is a normal human need and I hope, had I been starved and prevented from going to the toilet while being interrogated in a cold room, is something even Singapore would not have perpetrated. Again, I would like to emphasize that I am not a terrorist, a bank robber, rapist, or ‘overstayer’ and there was no need to treat me in such an ugly and uncivilized manner,

12.  Then for the Attorney General to ‘remind’ me of my rights to request the return of my passport without conditions in order that I may spend Christmas with my family and seek further medical attention in the UK, as Dr. Yan advised me to consider in the near future, then rescind the offer by making it impossible by imposing an $80,000 bond is further evidence of Singapore’s duplicity in the administration of justice. This also helps to confirm much of what I have said in my book Once A jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock.

13. In view of all the above, I have instructed my legal advisors in Singapore and London to begin proceedings for malicious prosecution.

14.Annexed herewith, Exhibit “A”, are copies of the numerous letters (inclusive of fax transmissions) sent, by my counsel Mr. M. Ravi, to the police, entailing the extent to which the police had harassed me in the name of investigations and the extent to which my counsel had to go to preserve my health and sanity,

Affirmed by the abovenamed
ALAN SHADRAKE

Suppressing dissent in Singapore: the case of Alan Shadrake in Nov 2010

Suppressing dissent in Singapore: the case of Alan Shadrake in Nov 2010. Quoting The Guardian:

A court in Singapore on Nov 16, 2010 sentenced the British author Alan Shadrake to six weeks in prison after he was earlier found guilty of contempt over claims in his book about city-state's application of the death penalty.

Shadrake, 76, was also fined US$15,400 over allegations he made in Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore's Justice in the Dock, which claimed that the state bowed to foreign influence and favoured the wealthy and well connected in deciding who should hang.

ps. A British lawyer's view

Conviction of Alan Shadrake casts doubt on Yale NUS tie-up: rightly so

Quoting from University World News: Conviction of Alan Shadrake casts doubt on Yale NUS tie-up

Yale needed to consider "the possible risk to students in Singapore who take the idea of free expression seriously and are emboldened by it, and if the oligarchy there is embarrassed and afraid it will spill over to the general public, things could get extremely ugly. At the very least, Yale's name should not be on the institution," Yale classics professor Victor Bers said.

If Singapore is to cultivate a genuinely liberal intellectual climate, and stop being a society dominated by docile and narrow-focused technocrats and managers, then Alan Shadrake's book should give rise to open debates, and not court proceedings against its author that inspire fear among Singaporeans of crossing invisible government lines.

ps. Essay in the New Republic.

Debating Death Penalty in Singapore

My thoughts here are in response to this report on Yale's reaction to the Singapore court's conviction of Alan Shadrake.

Are open debates about death penalty so threatening to the Singapore governing and judicial establishments that such extraordinary (by global standard) measure of suppression is called for? 

I believe that death penalty can be justified. I also believe that the Singapore society is ready to debate such issues as death penalty, euthanasia, and abortion. Social cohesion is not under threat with such inquiries and debates.

A true liberal education must cultivate fearless intellectual inquiries, free from taboo issues. Suppressing debates and inquiries in society can only be justified when violence and crimes are likely to ensue.

Therefore Yale's reservation about collaborating with NUS is well founded.

ps. Perhaps what is threatening to the authority is not debates on the death penalty, but inquiry into the independence of the Singapore judiciary, which has more reasons for being a taboo issue.

It is my belief that the nature of the Singapore judiciary, and its independence or otherwise, is a proper subject of intellectual inquiry in academia and in society.