Europe MPs 'gagged' by Singapore
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After stunning a white house official over the pay issue, another incident that is giving the foreign press a ball of a time with Singapore.....
Its not some no-name news agency, but this story is on BBC and CNN, so that is pretty big readership/viewership.
This does spark a debate, is singapore really that oppressive such that we refuse to let people speak at forums? These people who were "gagged" are european member of parliments, some even were warned that they could be arrested....
But then again, the counterpoint is that they should no meddle in Singapore's politics, which I do agree to some extent, after all, who likes others butting into our business? But then again, they might not even be speaking about Singapore politics, they could be speaking about general things relating to democracy or liberalism. After the IMF incident where activist can only protest in a yellow box in a room (SAF smoking point FTL), this is not really good for our international reputation, especially if you notice the way BBC and CNN phrased their reports.
From BBCnews:
"Singapore has been accused of acting like an "authoritarian state" after refusing to allow European Parliament members to speak during a visit.
The seven MEPs, as well as a Cambodian and a Philippines congresswoman, were denied permission to speak at a forum on democracy in Europe and Asia.
One MEP likened the Singaporeans' to repressive regimes such as North Korea.
The Singapore government said foreigners did not have permission to address the event......." Full story
posted by ar zhou @ 10:26 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Although I'm not a PAP supporter, I also agree that foreigners should not be involved in our internal politics.
The thing is, this kind of thing is always organised by SDP. I feel that they are nothing but troublemakers.
Yeap I agree with you on that point, the SDP is pretty much all hot air only.
But I guess this incident could turn out to be bad press on the international level even though in this case the authorities were right. Just looking at the way it was phrased by the BBC and CNN did make singapore look quite bad... but then again we are already known to be quite authoritarian as a state
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