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<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR><TD class=msgleft rowSpan=4 width="1%"></TD><TD class=wintiny noWrap align=right>31820.1 </TD></TR><TR><TD height=8></TD></TR><TR><TD class=msgtxt>
April 16th, 2010 |
Author: Site Admin
Written by Our Correspondent
It was supposed to be the world’s largest gathering of democracy advocates and political parties right at our doorsteps in Jakarta this week, but there was no mention of it in the Singapore media which has imposed a complete news blackout on World Movement for Democracy (WMD)’s general assembly.
Under the theme, “Solidarity Across Cultures: Working Together for Democracy,” the assembly was held from 10 – 14 April.
In his opening address, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a call for the world to embrace democracy:
“Regardless of what political model you embrace, I have no doubt that in our time our future belongs to those who are willing to responsibly embrace pluralism, openness and freedom. Your choice is to act and survive, or to resist and crumble,” he said.
Indonesia itself has made a relatively successful transition from autocracy under the Suharto years to a modern, functioning and vibrant democracy today.
The aseembly aims to provide participants with a forum to exchange practical, hands-on knowledge that they can use in the countries and regions in which they work and to ensure that the extent of repression exercised by regimes in closed societies will not pass unnoticed in the international community, and to devise new ways to enhance assistance to those inside those countries;
Though a wave of democratization has swept much of East and Southeast Asia in the last two decades which see former dictatorships like South Korea and Taiwan being overthrown and replaced by democracies, Singapore remains firmly in the iron fists of the PAP.
The PAP has ruled Singapore for more than 50 years since winning power in 1959.
Since then, it has managed to subvert and gain control of all institutions of the state to serve its own partisan purpose including the media, civil society, police, bureaucracy and grassroots organizations.
Though Singapore is supposedly a democracy on paper, it is no more a one-party totalitarian state than North Korea.
Repressive laws are put in place to curtail the civil and political liberties of citizens who cannot expect to vote out the PAP through the ballot box under an unfair electoral system engineered to keep the incumbents in power forever.
It is hardly a surprise that the Singapore media did not report on the assembly.
It is a mouthpiece of the PAP and will not publish anything which will be deemed detrimental to the interests of its political master.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
Written by Our Correspondent
It was supposed to be the world’s largest gathering of democracy advocates and political parties right at our doorsteps in Jakarta this week, but there was no mention of it in the Singapore media which has imposed a complete news blackout on World Movement for Democracy (WMD)’s general assembly.
Under the theme, “Solidarity Across Cultures: Working Together for Democracy,” the assembly was held from 10 – 14 April.
In his opening address, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono issued a call for the world to embrace democracy:
“Regardless of what political model you embrace, I have no doubt that in our time our future belongs to those who are willing to responsibly embrace pluralism, openness and freedom. Your choice is to act and survive, or to resist and crumble,” he said.
Indonesia itself has made a relatively successful transition from autocracy under the Suharto years to a modern, functioning and vibrant democracy today.
The aseembly aims to provide participants with a forum to exchange practical, hands-on knowledge that they can use in the countries and regions in which they work and to ensure that the extent of repression exercised by regimes in closed societies will not pass unnoticed in the international community, and to devise new ways to enhance assistance to those inside those countries;
Though a wave of democratization has swept much of East and Southeast Asia in the last two decades which see former dictatorships like South Korea and Taiwan being overthrown and replaced by democracies, Singapore remains firmly in the iron fists of the PAP.
The PAP has ruled Singapore for more than 50 years since winning power in 1959.
Since then, it has managed to subvert and gain control of all institutions of the state to serve its own partisan purpose including the media, civil society, police, bureaucracy and grassroots organizations.
Though Singapore is supposedly a democracy on paper, it is no more a one-party totalitarian state than North Korea.
Repressive laws are put in place to curtail the civil and political liberties of citizens who cannot expect to vote out the PAP through the ballot box under an unfair electoral system engineered to keep the incumbents in power forever.
It is hardly a surprise that the Singapore media did not report on the assembly.
It is a mouthpiece of the PAP and will not publish anything which will be deemed detrimental to the interests of its political master.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
