Tag: human rights

Has Lawyer M Ravi Had Enough Of His Client CPF Blogger Roy Ngerng?

The following video, believed to have been recorded on Friday, Feb. 6, 2015, outside the Subordinate Courts, shows lawyer M Ravi talking at length about his client, CPF blogger Roy Ngerng.

The purpose of Ravi’s court attendance, as he explains in the video, appears to be for an application for Ngerng to leave Singapore’s jurisdiction to go to Norway.

But Ngerng didn’t show up.

Here is a snippet of what Ravi said to the camera at 3 minutes 25 seconds:

“And you know what, to date, I’ve done so much of work and he’s keeping all the money, a hundred thousand I guess, to the tune of $70,000 or so. And what has happened?

He’s now blogging I understand.

Why is he not in this court when he wants to leave jurisdiction today to Norway? The application had been… the court is just waiting for him. Why is he not turning up to court? Why is he not answering anybody? Why is he not calling my office? Why did he not say that ‘Ravi or even a message I’m sorry I’m not turning up, I’m not leaving the country’. There’s no respect for the judge. Yet he has the gall and temerity to say that our judges are corrupted, our judges are not independent and this and that. And what respect do you have?

He goes behind my back, he goes and blogs, you know? And I’m going to discharge, if he is continuing his behaviour, either he goes and see a psychiatrist…

[…]

… because I’m fighting for him tooth and nail and he’s swindling the money.”

Here is the video:

Post by Choo Ming Hui.

Update, Feb. 8, 2015, 12.30am: The previous uploaded video is no longer accessible:

Post by Cheng Yong Chew.

A rift appeared to have occurred between lawyer and client when Ravi had to publicly distance himself a few weeks ago from a potentially libellous online article put out by Ngerng and his friends.

Ravi also said Ngerng is “too impulsive” to contest the next General Election with him in the same team.

We’d include more details about the origins of the video when we find out more.

*Update*

The video was produced by an individual by the name of Teo En Ming, who is popularly known in the Hardwarezone forums as sgvideoman.

Teo raised eyebrows last year when he filed a police report after his Hardwarezone forum account ‘sgvideoman’ was banned from the forums by one of the moderators.

His ‘fame’ on the Hardwarezone forum stemmed from his claim that he is being targeted by the Singapore Government and had lost two jobs because of it. His claim can be found in this Hardwarezone thread titled “(Wanbao material) Guy gets fired for shltting everywhere in the company“.

Teo also stated that he has filed a complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council about the Singapore Government for persecuting and blacklisting him. He also claimed that he could have been poisoned by the Singapore Government in his complaint.

Source: http://mothership.sg

February 8, 2015
Lawyer M Ravi To Contest As An Independent In Ang Mo Kio

Lawyer M Ravi today (Feb 2) declared in a hastily-called press conference his intention to contest the next General Election as an independent candidate in Ang Mo Kio constituency.

Sending the media the invitation roughly three hours before the press conference started yesterday afternoon at The Fullerton Bay Hotel, he spent nearly an hour unleashing a tirade against the Government for not treating Singaporeans with due respect and not putting their interests above those of foreigners.

His electoral campaign, he said, will focus on seeing Singaporeans “being put first”. He also brought up a range of issues he wants to tackle should he be elected. For example, he called for the four official languages here — Malay, English, Mandarin and Tamil — to be made compulsory in school curriculum to “promote equality in the languages”.

The lawyer, who has taken on a number of cases involving government leaders, including the recent defamation suit by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong against blogger Roy Ngerng, said he chose to run in Mr Lee’s constituency because he (Mr Ravi) has a quarter of his relatives living there. He said he has not firmed up plans on who will run with him in the six-member Group Representation Constituency. Mr Ravi also said he aspires to become the Prime Minister one day. He claimed that he had set aside S$1 million for his campaign and said more details of his manifesto will be announced on Friday.

Source: www.todayonline.com

February 3, 2015
Guantanamo Detainee Forced To Have Sex With Female Interrogators

The former US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld should be charged with conspiracy to torture in light of the alleged ill-treatment – including sexual abuse – documented by Mohamedou Ould Slahi during his 12 years detention without charge in Guantanamo Bay, his lawyer has claimed.

Mr Slahi’s Guantanamo Diary, published today, is the only account written by a detainee still held in the controversial American military prison on Cuba. The 44-year-old describes how he was told he would be taught about “great American sex” and then he was tortured and forced to have sexual intercourse with female interrogators.

He describes how he was subjected to brutal treatment, including being kept in a “frozen room” for hours on end, forced to drink salt water, and repeatedly beaten.

“I was literally living in terror,” he writes, adding that he was denied sleep for more than two months. “For the next 70 days I wouldn’t know the sweetness of sleeping: interrogation 24 hours a day, three and sometimes four shifts a day.”

His allegations of psychological and physical torture suffered come just weeks after a US Senate report revealed the widespread use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” by the CIA.

In an interview with The Independent, his lawyer Nancy Hollander said: “The convention against torture, of which the United States is a party, requires that countries prosecute those who have tortured – why hasn’t anyone been prosecuted? I’m talking about Secretary of State Rumsfeld – he’s the one who signed the orders to torture Mohamedou… he should be charged with conspiracy to commit torture.”

Mr Slahi’s legal team have spent years battling to get a redacted version of his diary, regarded as a ‘secret’ document by the US government, released. Described by John Le Carre as a “vision of hell, beyond Orwell, beyond Kafka,” the inside account of life at Guantanamo is prompting renewed calls for his release.

The actors Colin Firth, Stephen Fry and Riz Ahmed, along with musician Brian Eno and novelist Elif Shafak, are among those backing a new campaign being launched today to free the 44-year-old detainee.

Mr Slahi fought with al-Qaeida in Afghanistan when they were being backed by the US in their fight to oust the Soviet regime, but claims he left the group in 1992.

He was arrested in November 2001 in his home country, Mauritania, and taken to Amman by the Jordanian military – where he was interrogated and held for more than seven months. He was then ‘renditioned’ by the CIA to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and taken to Guantanamo Bay in August 2002, suspected of involvement in a plot to bomb Los Angeles in 1999.

He has never been charged with any crime, and a US federal judge ordered his release four years ago. But an appeal against the decision by the US government means he is one of 122 inmates remaining at the prison – including Briton Shaker Aamer.

Teaching himself English with the help of his guards, in 2005 Mr Slahi wrote a 466-page draft of his diary by hand. It details his suffering at the hands of his interrogators. This was not confined to physical beatings, he writes. On one occasion, he recalls in a partly redacted account how two female interrogators allegedly sexually abused him.

‘As soon as I stood up, the two _______ took off their blouses, and started to talk all kind of dirty stuff you can imagine, which I minded less.

“What hurt me most was them forcing me to take part in a sexual threesome in the most degrading manner. What many _______ don’t realize is that men get hurt the same as women if they’re forced to have sex, maybe more due to the traditional position of the man,” he writes.

“Both _______ stuck on me, literally one on the front and the other older _______ stuck on my back rubbing ____ whole body on mine. At the same time they were talking dirty to me, and playing with my sexual parts.”

Mr Slahi remembers another time when a female interrogator told him: “If you start to cooperate, I’m gonna stop harassing you. Otherwise I’ll be doing the same with you and worse every day…Having sex with somebody is not considered torture.”

The use of sex to degrade and humiliate him was “part of their enhanced interrogation techniques” according to Ms Hollander.

“In many ways I believe they were using people like Mohamedou to experiment, what will happen when we do these things to people? Will it work or can they resist it?” she said. “But what I believe was the worst in many ways was the fake letter that they brought, saying that they were going to bring his mother to Guantanamo if he didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear.

“In many ways that was the worst for him, the fear that his mother was going to be arrested and captured and tortured, and he started telling them anything they wanted to hear, which he made up.”

Ms Hollander has been a regular visitor to Guantanamo for the past decade, since taking on Mr Slahi’s case in 2005.

“He’s bearing up well, the book is a big help, it’s something for him to look forward to because he’s got a voice and people will finally hear it,” she said, describing Mr Slahi as “delightful, warm, loving, funny, and smart”.

“Considering what he’s been through there’s a fragility to him but there’s also a patience and an ability to withstand what’s happened and hope for a better future… I have to hope that he will get out and that this book will help… We have to count on the court of public opinion to release him. And Guantanamo has to close.”

Source: www.independent.co.uk

January 22, 2015
Activist Doctor Mads Gilbert Denied Access to Gaza Indefinitely

Mads Gilbert, an outspoken Norwegian doctor and activist who treated patients at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital during Israel’s assault on the Palestinian territory this summer, has been denied access to Gaza “indefinitely” by Israeli authorities.

Gilbert told Al Jazeera on Friday that he was turned away from the Erez border crossing when attempting to return to Gaza in October, despite having all the legitimate paper work.

“To my surprise I was denied access by the Israeli military,” he said. “When I asked the reason they informed me that it was a security issue.”

Gilbert said that when he asked for a fuller explanation, he was told to “leave the premises or the police would be called”.

Telling the world about the burdens of the Palestinians in Gaza is considered a security risk.

The 67-year-old, who has been involved in solidarity work with Palestinians for decades and volunteered at al-Shifa during three wars, has been a vocal critic of Israel’s military campaigns and its occupation of Palestinian territory.

During the seven-week conflict between Israel and the Hamas movement that left more than 2,000 Palestinians dead, Gilbert frequently spoke to international media, including Al Jazeera, about the situation at al-Shifa hospital, which was overwhelmed with civilian casualties.

However, a spokesperson for the Coordination of the Government Activities in the Territories, the Israeli authority that coordinates all traffic between Gaza and Israel, told Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang that the refusal of entry was related to security reasons and had “nothing to do with Gilbert’s anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic remarks”.

Gilbert told Al Jazeera he was informed that the ban was “infinite without any time limit”.

He said he had been invited by the Gaza Health Ministry which had requested his assistance to research the the impact on healthcare of the Israeli bombardment and to follow up on work done during that time.

The Norwegian embassy in Tel Aviv has made numerous inquiries to the Israeli government about the ban.

Bard Glad Pedersen, state secretary at the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, told Verdens Gang, “we have raised Gilbert’s exclusion from Gaza and asked Israel to change their decision. The humanitarian situation in Gaza is still difficult and there is a need for all health workers.”

Medical Aid for Palestinians, a UK-registered charity which has been working in the occupied West Bank and Gaza for over 20 years and supports al-Shifa hospital called the ban on Gilbert “deeply concerning” and reiterated that, “following the recent conflict, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza require specialised surgical treatment and it is imperative that the right to health is unimpeded.”

Denouncing his entry ban as a limitation of freedom of expression, Gilbert said it appeared the Israeli government “doesn’t want the effects of their continuous attacks on the civilian population in Gaza to be known to the world.”

“Telling the world about the burdens of the Palestinians in Gaza is considered a security risk”, he said, adding that in a larger perspective, the ban was not about him but about the Gazans’ right to international assistance.

“The Israeli authorities are, in my opinion, in no position to deny the Palestinian people support from the international community,” he told Al Jazeera.

He vowed to continue to challenge Israel and called for political pressure to be exerted to lift the “long overdue” siege of Gaza.

“There is no way we’re going to accept that medical and humanitarian assistance to the people in Gaza shall be denied just because the Israeli government has decided so. I will not give up travelling to Gaza as long as they have medical needs,” he said.

Israel launched “Operation Protective Edge” following firing of rockets by Palestinian armed groups from Gaza.

According to UN figures the Palestinian death toll was 2,131, of whom 1,473 were identified as civilians, including 501 children.. On the Israeli side, 77 people, mostly soldiers, were killed.

Source: www.aljazeera.com

November 15, 2014
Top Lawyers Disagreeing Over Gay Sex Law

The subject of universal human rights took a local turn at a university forum on Tuesday night, with two top lawyers disagreeing over whether an anti-gay sex law should be done away with.

National University of Singapore (NUS) law don Walter Woon said he was in favour of repealing the law because of what he sees as a “constitutional problem”.

The Government has said that the law will not be proactively enforced. But Prof Woon, a former attorney-general, cited Section 35(8) of the Constitution to make the point that the powers to prosecute lie with the Attorney-General.

“So we have a very dangerous precedent here where the political authorities are saying to the Public Prosecutor – who is supposed to be independent – there are some laws that you don’t enforce,” he said at the 12th NUS Tembusu Forum attended by about 250 students.

“I find that very uncomfortable,” he added.

Section 377A makes it a crime for men to commit acts of gross indecency with other men, whether in private or public. It carries a jail term of up to two years. The law, enacted in 1938, has been in the spotlight in recent years following Parliament debates and constitutional challenges.

Prof Woon said that homosexual sex was “absolutely impossible to prove” as a practical matter. He added: “As a matter of principle, if these are consenting adults, why should it carry a jail term?”

While considered a sin by certain religions, it could be accorded similar treatment to adultery and fornication, which are not crimes under the law, he said, adding: “If it is a sin, it is between you and God.”

NUS Centre for International Law chairman Tommy Koh agreed that the provision should in principle be done without, but said abolishing it was “not so simple” given potential political pushback.

A majority of Singaporeans were against a repeal going by opinion polls, Prof Koh said.

“The compromise is a law in the book, but Singapore will not enforce that law,” he said, adding that the Government’s difficulty in balancing opposing opinions “should not be underestimated”.

The panel at the two-hour forum titled Are Human Rights Truly Universal? also included Ms Braema Mathi, president of human rights group Maruah, and Mr Bernhard Faustenhammer, who heads the political, press and information section of the European Union delegation to Singapore.

They concurred that the idea of human rights is universal, but its application hinges on local contexts, such as culture and history.

Ms Mathi cited the example of Brunei’s recent passing of the hudud law, an Islamic penal code that calls for death by stoning for adultery, which she said appears to contradict both regional and global human rights declarations.

Source: http://www.straitstimes.com/news/singapore/more-singapore-stories/story/walter-woon-tommy-koh-differ-377a-anti-gay-sex-law-nus-f#sthash.SlWstfl7.juoA4njc.dpuf

September 19, 2014