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Singapore corruption ranking is a joke
Published on November 25, 2009
I noticed recently that Thailand has slipped to 84th place in the worldwide graft index, but that fellow Asean member Singapore was ranked 3rd in the world and was the cleanest country in Asia.
Whilst the position of Thailand and that of Singapore as the cleanest country in Asia was to be expected, the fact that Singapore is ranked 3rd in the world struck me as somewhat surreal.
One of the main precursors for an open and incorrupt society, as I understand it, is a strong, independent and free press that is not afraid to undertake investigative journalism to expose wrongdoers so that they can be prosecuted and tried in fair and unbiased courts.
Singapore's press, however, is ranked 133 on a world scale of 175 for freedom, languishing beneath such paragons of virtue as Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, Cambodia and Nicaragua.
Given this fact, it is worrying that the Singaporean ruling family, the Lees, have won yet another big court settlement and that the target of their latest defamation suit was the well known and respected Far Eastern Economic Review, owned by the highly responsible "Dow Jones & Co, which wrote an article on Chee Soon Juan, an opposition party leader.
Where those who are the first line of defence in the fight against corruption are bound and gagged and live in constant fear of law suits on a whim, I doubt we are seeing anything that equates to a full and clear picture of the "cleanliness" of Singapore.
JOHN SYMONS
BANGKOK
Published on November 25, 2009
I noticed recently that Thailand has slipped to 84th place in the worldwide graft index, but that fellow Asean member Singapore was ranked 3rd in the world and was the cleanest country in Asia.
Whilst the position of Thailand and that of Singapore as the cleanest country in Asia was to be expected, the fact that Singapore is ranked 3rd in the world struck me as somewhat surreal.
One of the main precursors for an open and incorrupt society, as I understand it, is a strong, independent and free press that is not afraid to undertake investigative journalism to expose wrongdoers so that they can be prosecuted and tried in fair and unbiased courts.
Singapore's press, however, is ranked 133 on a world scale of 175 for freedom, languishing beneath such paragons of virtue as Bangladesh, the Central African Republic, Cambodia and Nicaragua.
Given this fact, it is worrying that the Singaporean ruling family, the Lees, have won yet another big court settlement and that the target of their latest defamation suit was the well known and respected Far Eastern Economic Review, owned by the highly responsible "Dow Jones & Co, which wrote an article on Chee Soon Juan, an opposition party leader.
Where those who are the first line of defence in the fight against corruption are bound and gagged and live in constant fear of law suits on a whim, I doubt we are seeing anything that equates to a full and clear picture of the "cleanliness" of Singapore.
JOHN SYMONS
BANGKOK
:p:p:p
