154th LIED On Martyn See's Film!

[makapaaa]

Did not Martyn See decide to send his film to Msia's film festival before Ass Loon's rallee speech? Now the 154th wanna give Ass Loon's credit for Martyn See being able to send his film to Msia! *shake head*

Part 1

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Home > Breaking News > Singapore > Story

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<!-- headline one : start --><TR>Lights, politics, action? <!--10 min-->

</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Singaporeans will soon be allowed to make party political films, post podcasts and vodcasts online at election time and demonstrate at Speakers' Corner. The rules are changing but how will that affect political discourse here? Insight asks academics, activists and politicians for their take, a week after Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the changes at the National Day Rally. </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Jeremy Au Yong

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Singaporeans speak up over the years - from a protest march in the early years to voicing their opinion at the Speakers' Corner and registering their strong views with cutouts. -- THE STRAITS TIMES GRAPHICS: LIM YONG/THE STRAITS TIMES FILE PHOTOS/THE NEW PAPER/LIANHE ZAOBAO

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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"-->RIGHT after film-maker Martyn See heard Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's National Day Rally speech last Sunday, he sent for two tapes of his films that he had been keeping across the causeway.
The films, one on Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan and the other, a documentary on former political detainee Said Zahari, had to be exiled as they are both currently banned here.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css> #related .quote {background-color:#E7F7FF; padding:8px;margin:0px 0px 5px 0px;} #related .quote .headline {font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:10px;font-weight:bold; border-bottom:3px double #007BFF; color:#036; text-transform:uppercase; padding-bottom:5px;} #related .quote .text {font-size:11px;color:#036;padding:5px 0px;} </STYLE>1 Lifting the bar on party political films


Party political films will be allowed, but with some safeguards. Documentaries, factual footage and recordings of live events are OK. Political commercials, footage distorted to give a slanted impression are not.

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</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Banned only for the time being, he hopes.
He plans to resubmit them to the Board of Film Censors soon.
The 39-year-old's optimism stems from PM Lee's move to lift three longstanding bans on political expression.
The first is the bar on party political films, which is set to go when the Government amends the Films Act early next year.
Second, podcasts and vodcasts - which were banned in the lead-up to the last General Election in 2006 - will get the green light at the next polls.
PM Lee even whipped out his mobile phone midway through his speech, filmed his audience and had the video file streamed to a website.
It was his way of showing how such instant vodcasts have now become a way of life here.
Yet, he also stressed that the easing of the two bans does not mean a free-for-all.
Factual footage, documentaries and recordings of live events will get the go-ahead.
But not political commercials or 'purely made-up material, partisan stuff, footage distorted to create a slanted impression'.
'I think those should still be off- limits,' the Prime Minister said.
In opening up the space for election materials online, Mr Lee also stressed that accountability and responsibility must be maintained, somehow.
The third and final restriction he lifted was on outdoor protests. Those who want to will be able to stage their demonstrations in the open, but only at Speakers' Corner.
'The overall thrust of all these changes,' PM Lee said, 'is to liberalise our society, to widen the space for expression and participation.
'We encourage more citizens to engage in debate, to participate in building our shared future and we will progressively open up our system even more,' he pledged. What impact are these changes likely to have on political participation here? How significant are they, really?
All changed?

FEW anticipate a sudden glut of political films, protests or online electioneering.
After all, the planned changes are in some sense a case of the law trying to catch up with reality on the ground.
Media academic Cherian George of the Nanyang Technological University points out that netizens openly flouted the Internet regulations at the last polls.
'There were restrictions on podcasts and vodcasts during the 2006 elections, but I did not detect any restraint on the part of the bloggers,' he says.
The elections that year were dubbed by some as Singapore's first Internet polls. They are likely to be remembered for a certain 'persistently non-political podcast' that revolved round the beloved hawker dish of 'bak chor mee'.
The move to allow demonstrations at Speakers' Corner will cut no ice with the likes of Singapore Democratic Party chief Chee Soon Juan.
'You can bet they will continue to demonstrate elsewhere precisely to invite a government clampdown,' Dr George predicts.
If any concrete, measurable change is to come from the latest moves to liberalise, Dr George expects it will be in the field of political films.
The ban has led to independent and student film-makers steering clear of any topics that risked being labelled political.
'The ban has a chilling effect. They don't want to invest money and effort in a film only to have it banned,' he says.
Singapore Management University law lecturer Eugene Tan expects an early spike in interest in political films and outdoor protests that will peter out before too long.
'I anticipate a flurry of interest in the early days but it will slowly quieten down, pretty much like when Speakers' Corner was first established.
'The novelty effect will wear off and public demonstrations will be but one of many modes of expression for one's favoured cause,' he says.
The changes look like they may pave the way for more online political action from the likes of the opposition Workers' Party, but its chairman Sylvia Lim prefers to withhold judgment until more details are announced.
She does, however, voice concerns about the broad dos and don'ts outlined by PM Lee.
'The general ideal is in keeping with the right to freedom of expression as set out in the Constitution but the PM himself has already put in qualifications.
'If an opposition supporter collates Workers' Party footage without presenting the People's Action Party's responses, is that slanted?' she asks.
She notes that it is also not clear how election advertising during the campaign period will be relaxed.
'If political commercials are out, then where does that leave political parties and citizen supporters? Are we back to square one?'
Blogger Gerald Giam, 30, deputy editor of current affairs blog The Online Citizen, agrees that the latest moves to open up the political space will make little difference to those who are already politically engaged.
He is, however, hopeful that the Prime Minister's announcement will encourage those who have so far remained on the sidelines to speak up more.
'PM Lee's announcement could help shift the mindsets of those who are averse to the rough and tumble of the Internet,' he says.
Alluding to reports that there were different views within the Cabinet on how best to respond to citizen expression online, Mr Giam says of Mr Lee's mobile video-streaming demonstration:
'I can't help but wonder if PM Lee's multimedia demos were directed at his senior colleagues in the front row.'

 

[makapaaa]

Part 2

How big a shift?

TO FILM-MAKER Martyn See, the trio of changes rolled out at this year's rally are not to be sniffed at.
They represent 'the most obvious relaxation of political space in Singapore in the past 20 years', he says.
They follow various refinements over the last decade to ease restrictions on the airing of political views, kicking off with the setting up of Speakers' Corner in 1999.
Four years ago, in his maiden rally speech, PM Lee announced that organisers of indoor talks would no longer need to apply for a police permit.
Also done away with were licensing requirements for those who wanted to hold performances or exhibitions at Speakers' Corner.
Political scientist Kenneth Paul Tan of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy agrees that the latest changes are a step - albeit a small one - in the right direction.
They reflect a government that has grown secure enough to do away with the the 'blunt instrument' of total bans employed in the past, he says.
'Today - and the speech is an indication of this - the Government appears to be more confident of adopting a more precise and surgical approach to opening up public space for citizens to get involved in political discussion, experiment with new ideas, and express themselves more creatively, all without jeopardising the basic safety of this expanded space.'
He notes that though the Government will continue to regulate the space available for political expression, 'there will be more opportunity over time to negotiate the terms of these regulations'.
'If the space is used responsibly and cleverly, I believe there is hope for it to grow,' he adds.
Yet, the change does have its fair share of critics.
The SDP has - unsurprisingly - been perhaps the most scathing.
The party dismissed the shifts flagged by PM Lee as meaningless gestures, and the equivalent of wreathing a 'bulldog with ribbons'.
'It prettifies, it's good for a laugh, it makes a sad commentary about the people behind the ridiculous charade and, most of all, it fools no one,' the SDP said in a statement.
Businessman Alex Au, 55, who runs political blog Yawning Bread, criticises the changes for being 'too little, too late'.
They simply update laws that were difficult to enforce, instead of leading the way, he observes.
'It would be better if the Government had gone above the absolute minimum, like allowing freedom of expression beyond Speakers' Corner, so that it does not look like a forced response to an inescapable reality,' he says.
He suggests places like Fort Canning and the Padang as possible alternative venues for protests.
Doing it the S'pore way

EVEN as activists and experts debate the significance of the latest moves to liberalise, many Singaporeans are likely to share the sentiments of civil servant Scott Huang, 27.
'I would like Singapore to liberalise faster but I'm not ready for my life to be disrupted by a mass demonstration,' he says.
Like him, many have heard and heeded the oft-repeated warnings of Singapore's political leaders that a repeat of riots, like those sparked by racial differences in the 1960s, could wreak havoc on this small city state.
As history professor Albert Lau notes, 'We are still generally quite conservative. Stability is the most important thing for most Singaporeans'.
But Dr Tan of the LKY School warns against a tendency to be overly cautious about the pace of political change.
'If we continually tell ourselves that we are not ready, then we'll never be ready. If Singaporeans don't get a chance to experience a peaceful demonstration, then we will never learn how to conduct ourselves in such an event,' he says.
'In a sense, Singapore was not ready for independence in 1965, but we didn't turn out too badly, did we?' he adds.
In the months to come, the debate on political liberalisation is set to pick up pace.
The Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts will be studying how and what to change in the Films Act and the Parliamentary Elections Act.
It will draw from a report by the Advisory Council on the Impact of New Media on Society, due for release soon.
PM Lee has indicated that the latest trio of changes will not mark the end of the political liberalisation process, pledging to 'progressively open up our system even more'.
But those in charge of Singapore will 'continue to feel our way forward', not copy others blindly, he added.
The pace at which such change will come remains to be seen, even as conservatives and those who hanker for greater freedom continue to pull in different directions. [email protected]