Till the Old Dud Passes On, SG Will Remain in Political Dark Age

[makapaaa]

http://yoursdp.org/index.php/news/s...-news-forum-cancelled-participants-locked-out
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[TD="class: contentheading, width: 100%"]Breaking news: Forum cancelled, participants locked out [/TD]
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[TD="class: createdate"]Saturday, 24 September 2011 [/TD]
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[TD]Singapore Democrats

The SDP understands that a forum featuring Malaysian opposition MP Mr Tian Chua and blogger Mr Alex Au has been cancelled by the venue owner. An 'Event Cancelled' notice was posted on the door of the hall at the last minute.

Organised by filmmaker Mr Martyn See, the forum was scheduled for today at 2 pm at The Verge, a shopping mall in Tekka, Serangoon Road. When participants arrived at the venue, however, they were greeted by the sign and locked out of the hall.

The owner of the place informed the organiser that the venue was prohibited from holding political talks. He abruptedly cancelled the event at the last minute when he realised that the topic of the forum was on politics.

Such is the tragedy of Singapore. Politics is still a taboo subject among many people and its discussion is still met with fear. Instead of looking ahead with confidence and hope, we are still held back by fear instilled through the decades by the PAP. It is hard to imagine that in this day and age, situations such as this is still happening.

In 2008, police officers and Media Development Authority (MDA) officials gatecrashed a screening of One Nation Under Lee, a 40-minute clip documenting the control of Singapore by Mr Lee Kuan Yew. It was produced by Mr Seelan Palay. (Watch video: Part 1 and Part 2)

Even though the screening was a private affair, the authorities found it fit to demand that the screening of the video be stopped and that it be handed over to the MDA.

It was clear that the Government acted because the video was about Mr Lee because it would never dream of gatecrashing other private events, such as wedding dinners, which routinely screen videos. There is no law saying that private screenings of political issues is disallowed. Such arbitrary action is not consistent with the rule of law.

Readers will be updated on developments as and when they happen.[/TD]
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[makapaaa]

http://www.straitstimes.com/BreakingNews/Singapore/Story/STIStory_716240.html
[h=1]Forum on human rights runs into problems with venue mgmt[/h]
Published on Sep 24, 2011

By Andrea Ong

<!--start of story text-->A forum on human rights and democracy organised by the Singaporeans for Democracy (SFD) political association ran into some problems on Saturday afternoon.
The forum was to have taken place at 2pm at a Singapore Human Resources Institute (SHRI) training room at The Verge shopping mall, but a dispute arose between the event organiser, SFD executive secretary and film-maker Martyn See, and the SHRI management.
Mr See, 42, said the institute's management had cancelled his venue booking at the last minute. He received an email from SHRI on Friday afternoon saying that his booking was cancelled 'due to unforeseen circumstances'. This was despite him making his booking three weeks ago and paying the fee of around $600 in full, he said.
However, SHRI executive director David Ang, 64, said Mr See had not stated the subject matter of the forum in his application form. The institute's constitution states that it is not allowed to hold events of a political nature, he added. Mr Ang said he only found out about the subject of the forum, titled 'Lee Kuan Yew: liberal democracy will do us in. Will it?', when he visited a web page advertising the event two or three days ago.