Ladies and Gentlemen,
Finally the moment has arrived, not that anybody had ever thought it will not happen. Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state island has finally realized that the Internet has now become an imminent threat to their dictatorial rule over their helpless subjects. Realizing that if they did nothing, it is going to be their end sooner than later, they have decided to silence the Internet. See state controlled newspaper the Straits Times report "MDA rolls out licensing scheme for news websites" May 28, 2013. (MDA is a government ministry which controls media communication. It stands for Media Development Agency, clearly a deliberate false label, because it does not develop it, it stifles it)
In spite of the government's hopeless attempt to deny the stifling of free speech (not that Singapore had any in the first place), for the first time blogs who report on Singapore have to be licensed and may be shut down or required to take down blogs which they do not like.
It says
"From June 1, websites that regularly report news and have significant reach will require individual licenses to operate".
Whether your blog requires licensing depends on how many hits your blog receives, decided as at least 50 for 2 months, and also if the contents are primarily about .
Furthermore now blogs would have to
“Under the new framework, these sites must also put up a performance bond of $50,000, similar to that required for niche TV broadcasters".
The idea of this bond requirement is that if you get notice from Big Brother that your blog should be taken down and you don't, the Lee family will sue you in their Kangaroo courts and if you don't pay, they will take it out of your $50,000.00 bond.
And the rules for them to accuse you of breaking the rules are very broad. They simply have carte blanche. They merely have to show that ”This material could cover content that is against the public interest, public security, or national harmony".
As to what they mean by "against public interest" of "public security" or "national harmony" is not anywhere defined. In the end, what they mean is what they say it means. What they are literally telling you is either shut up or we will close your blog and take your money through their Kangaroo courts.
After all this, what, with Kangaroo courts, no freedom of speech, expression or assembly, no fee trade unions, and now this, only a very dull and desperate person would want to live in an island such as Singapore.
By this law they are trying to effectively shut up the only avenue left for criticism, which was the Internet. Not that Singaporeans had any right of criticism in the past. Today the only criticism you see is the anonymous kind on the Internet because Singaporeans are afraid to put their names to what they write fearing Lee's Kangaroo courts. But at least they could do it anonymously. After this new law, even that is prohibited, because they can trace the authors of even anonymous blogs and come after you if they took offense.
It is not Singaporeans who will suffer from this but the brainless Lee Kuan Yew government. Already anyone capable of leaving for settlement in the West has already done so or is actively pursuing that plan. Now with this new law silencing even anonymous writers on the Internet and squashing even Internet criticism, they are literally ringing their own death knell. From now on, even more Singaporeans are going to leave the island, fewer babies will be born and those remaining in will be of the worst quality of human species imaginable; ignorant, spiritless and cowardly.
The junta is shooting themselves in the foot.
And by an uncanny coincidence, this blog "Singapore Dissident" is going to even more widely read, since, except for blogs from overseas, nowhere will you see any blog calling their courts Kangaroo. You know that these courts are corrupt as well as I, but no one within that island would ever dare say it. So if you want to hear someone calling a rat by that very name, you have to turn to Gopalan Nair and his Singapore Dissident.
The only reason why I can continue to say it is because to sue me they would have to contend with an American court. And there are no Kangaroo courts in the unlike .
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 4375Ladies and Gentlemen,
Finally the moment has arrived, not that anybody had ever thought it will not happen. Lee Kuan Yew's one party police state island has finally realized that the Internet has now become an imminent threat to their dictatorial rule over their helpless subjects. Realizing that if they did nothing, it is going to be their end sooner than later, they have decided to silence the Internet. See state controlled newspaper the Straits Times report "MDA rolls out licensing scheme for news websites" May 28, 2013. (MDA is a government ministry which controls media communication. It stands for Media Development Agency, clearly a deliberate false label, because it does not develop it, it stifles it)
In spite of the government's hopeless attempt to deny the stifling of free speech (not that Singapore had any in the first place), for the first time blogs who report on Singapore have to be licensed and may be shut down or required to take down blogs which they do not like.
It says
"From June 1, websites that regularly report news and have significant reach will require individual licenses to operate".
Whether your blog requires licensing depends on how many hits your blog receives, decided as at least 50 for 2 months, and also if the contents are primarily about .
Furthermore now blogs would have to
“Under the new framework, these sites must also put up a performance bond of $50,000, similar to that required for niche TV broadcasters".
The idea of this bond requirement is that if you get notice from Big Brother that your blog should be taken down and you don't, the Lee family will sue you in their Kangaroo courts and if you don't pay, they will take it out of your $50,000.00 bond.
And the rules for them to accuse you of breaking the rules are very broad. They simply have carte blanche. They merely have to show that ”This material could cover content that is against the public interest, public security, or national harmony".
As to what they mean by "against public interest" of "public security" or "national harmony" is not anywhere defined. In the end, what they mean is what they say it means. What they are literally telling you is either shut up or we will close your blog and take your money through their Kangaroo courts.
After all this, what, with Kangaroo courts, no freedom of speech, expression or assembly, no fee trade unions, and now this, only a very dull and desperate person would want to live in an island such as Singapore.
By this law they are trying to effectively shut up the only avenue left for criticism, which was the Internet. Not that Singaporeans had any right of criticism in the past. Today the only criticism you see is the anonymous kind on the Internet because Singaporeans are afraid to put their names to what they write fearing Lee's Kangaroo courts. But at least they could do it anonymously. After this new law, even that is prohibited, because they can trace the authors of even anonymous blogs and come after you if they took offense.
It is not Singaporeans who will suffer from this but the brainless Lee Kuan Yew government. Already anyone capable of leaving for settlement in the West has already done so or is actively pursuing that plan. Now with this new law silencing even anonymous writers on the Internet and squashing even Internet criticism, they are literally ringing their own death knell. From now on, even more Singaporeans are going to leave the island, fewer babies will be born and those remaining in will be of the worst quality of human species imaginable; ignorant, spiritless and cowardly.
The junta is shooting themselves in the foot.
And by an uncanny coincidence, this blog "Singapore Dissident" is going to even more widely read, since, except for blogs from overseas, nowhere will you see any blog calling their courts Kangaroo. You know that these courts are corrupt as well as I, but no one within that island would ever dare say it. So if you want to hear someone calling a rat by that very name, you have to turn to Gopalan Nair and his Singapore Dissident.
The only reason why I can continue to say it is because to sue me they would have to contend with an American court. And there are no Kangaroo courts in the unlike .
Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Tel: 510 491 4375
