Tag: Singapore

The Real Singapore Taken Down After MDA Suspends Editors’ Licence

Socio-political website The Real Singapore (TRS) was shut down by its editors yesterday, after the Media Development Authority (MDA) suspended their licence to operate the site and ordered them to take it offline.

Explaining this unprecedented step, the MDA said yesterday that TRS had published material that is “objectionable on the grounds of public interest, public order and national harmony”.

Noting that at least two out of TRS’ three known editors are foreigners, the agency added that the site “sought to incite anti-foreigner sentiments in Singapore” and to “make profit at the expense of Singapore’s public interest and national harmony”.

The move comes a month after two of the editors behind TRS – Singaporean student Yang Kaiheng, 26, and his Australian girlfriend Ai Takagi, 22 – were charged with sedition for publishing articles that allegedly promoted ill will and hostility between different races or classes here.

A third editor, Melanie Tan, who is believed to be Malaysian, was not included in the charges.

At a media briefing yesterday, MDA said TRS “deliberately fabricated articles and falsely attributed them to innocent parties”, in what the agency believes was an attempt to raise the site’s traffic – and thus its advertising dollars.

It also noted that TRS inserted falsehoods in articles so as to make them more inflammatory.

Previous police investigations found that TRS articles targeted Filipinos and Chinese and Indian nationals, among others.

Assistant Professor Liew Kai Khiun, who teaches communications at the Nanyang Technological University, said MDA’s unusual move should serve as a warning about “how vulnerable Singapore can be to external forces through the porous cyberspace”.

“It must have been alarming for the authorities and Singaporeans to discover the extent of foreign involvement in a website that has been accused of amplifying social tensions in Singapore,” he told The Straits Times.

Yesterday, MDA ordered Yang and Takagi not to post any new articles with immediate effect, and to take down the TRS website and all its online channels – including its social media pages – by 8pm. They did so an hour before the deadline.

If they had not done so, they could have been subject to a maximum fine of $200,000 and/or jailed for up to three years.

MDA also instructed Yang and Takagi not to resume online operations under any other name.

They have been given until May 11 to provide information on TRS’ operations, such as its finances, and to submit arguments as to why their licence to operate the site should not be cancelled.

Failure to provide the information could result in a fine of as much as $5,000 each and/or jail time of up to a year.

If their licence is cancelled, Yang and Takagi will not be allowed to operate the website permanently. MDA will also be able to take other actions, including blocking access to the site.

But they can appeal against the suspension and potential cancellation of the licence by writing to Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim.

Even as the site was taken down last night, several links were circulated online of what appeared to be clones of the site. An MDA spokesman said the agency is looking into the matter.

Former Nominated MP Calvin Cheng, who has campaigned for TRS to be shut down, said MDA’s move is not an affront to freedom of speech.

“This is not how freedom of speech is practised in Singapore, nor is it the type that most Singaporeans value,” he said.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 4, 2015
Unprecedented Orders Issued To The Real Singapore To Shut Down

In an unprecedented move on Sunday, the Media Development Authority (MDA) of Singapore ordered a website to shut itself down within six hours of the ultimatum being issued.

The MDA said, in a briefing to the mainstream media, that The Real Singapore (TRS) website had published content which it found “objectionable on the grounds of public interest, public order and national harmony.”

The government agency had thus revoked the statutory class license, an automatic license granted to all websites operating in Singapore, to TRS’ editors, namely Ai Takagi and Yang Kaiheng.

The revocation applies to all online platforms which are run by TRS, including its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“The MDA is satisfied that Takagi and Yang have contravened the Internet Code of Practice (ICOP),” the MDA said in a press statement. “They have published prohibited material as defined by the Code to be objectionable on the grounds of public interest, public order and national harmony.”

The agency added that TRS had “deliberately fabricated articles and falsely attributed them to innocent parties.”

“TRS has also inserted falsehoods in articles that were either plagiarised from local news sources or sent in by contributors so as to make the articles more inflammatory,” the MDA added, without specifying which articles it was referring to.

It also noted that “[at] least two out of TRS’s three known editors are believed to be foreigners.”

It said Takagi is Australian, while another editor Melanie Tan is believed to be Malaysian.

“The foreign editors were responsible for several articles that sought to incite anti-foreigner sentiments in Singapore,” the MDA said.

Apparently, part of the reasons for MDA actions was TRS’ “editorial strategy of deceiving readers and doctoring articles” which the MDA said “was an attempt to increase traffic to TRS, and thus boost advertising revenue.”

“In so doing, TRS, including its two foreign editors, were seeking to make profit at the expense of Singapore’s public interest and national harmony.”

Explaining why the MDA had not taken action against the website earlier, the government watchdog said the editors were operating outside of Singapore’s jurisdiction then.

“However, since December, the two of them have been running their operations from Singapore, bringing them within the jurisdiction of the Broadcasting Act,” the MDA said.

The agency said it also noted that Takagi and Yang are being charged with seven counts of sedition for content they had published on their website; that they have also been charged with refusing to comply with written orders to produce documents considered by the police investigator to be necessary for the investigation; they have also refused to disclose how much advertising revenue they have been collecting; and that TRS has “continued to publish material that contravenes the ICOP even after Takagi and Yang were charged.”

The ICOP refers to the Internet Code of Practice.

Takagi and Yang are also not to resume operations under any other name.

“They have also been given seven days to provide information relating to TRS’s operations and to make representations as to why their class licence should not be cancelled,” added the MDA.

Non compliance with these could lead to further fines and jail time for the duo.

The two editors have also been given till 11 May to file arguments with the authorities on why their licence to operate the website should not be revoked.

If the authorities uphold the revocation of their licence after their appeal, Takagi and Yang will not be allowed to operate the website permanently.

MDA could also block access to the site.

However, the two editors could lodge an appeal with the Minister of Communications and Information, Yaacob Ibrahim, to continue to operate TRS.

It is unclear if the editors will file such an appeal.

MDA’s action against TRS is the latest in a series of cases involving bloggers and netizens whom the government has taken action against, the most recent of which were the cases of 16-year old Amos Yee, blogger Roy Ngerng, activist Alex Au and this website (The Online Citizen) for various (alleged) offences.

In 2013, following amendments to Internet regulations here, Dr Yaacob had assured the public that the MDA’s “licensing regime was still light touch regulation”.

The amendments were slammed by many, including activists, for curbing free speech in Singapore.

“We want the online community to understand that this is not an attempt to clamp down on anybody,” Dr Yaacob said then. “I think the best way is for people to see, after the licences are issued, whether the activists are indeed limited in their public discourse.

“I expect that the sites will continue to operate as before. In fact, I hope that the activists who are making this far-fetched claim will be honest enough to admit it when the time comes.”

In an interview with the BBC on the new regulations, Dr Yaacob said, “As long as they [the public] go onto online news sites to read the news, I think it is important for us to make sure that they read the right things.”

MDA’s actions against TRS have also raised questions about its wide-ranging powers.

Blogger Ravi Philemon said, “The real hard question should be not whether a certain website must be shut-down or not, but whether a statutory board should have so much power to arbitrarily act in the manner that they did.”

Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

May 4, 2015
Capturing The Life And Times Of Pulau Ubin

A project is under way to capture the life and times of residents living on rustic Pulau Ubin.

The National Heritage Board (NHB) will conduct interviews with about 40 current and former Ubin residents before producing a research report and a 20-minute documentary on the island’s community heritage.

One possible interviewee is Mr Kat Kau Chye, a 67-year-old boat operator who lives in a wooden house on the 10.2 sq km, boomerang-shaped island.

Born and raised there, Mr Kat told The Straits Times he would never trade the tranquil kampung life for the dense urban living on mainland Singapore.

“In Singapore, you can hear your neighbours through the walls, or be woken up by the sounds of cars late at night,” said Mr Kat in Mandarin.

Then there is Ubin’s close-knit community, which he has become accustomed to.

“If I cook herbal soup, and my two or three neighbours bring along their own dishes, we have a feast,” he said.

It is this largely intangible spirit, among other things, that the NHB wants to document.

The project will seek to chronicle the interviewees’ experiences living on the island and their sentiments on the way of life there, as well as capture short biographies of them.

The NHB said this documentation project, which will also include oral history recordings, is one of its contributions to the ongoing Ubin Project led by the Ministry of National Development.

The ministry has been working with the community and other government agencies such as the National Parks Board to gather ideas on how to maintain the island’s rustic charm. Its plans include preserving Ubin’s nature and biodiversity.

Mr Alvin Tan, NHB’s assistant chief executive of policy and development, said research on the island’s community and social heritage can help “develop more sensitive strategies to enhance Pulau Ubin’s island heritage”.

The project will build on NHB’s earlier work on the island, which includes a 2013 documentation of the island’s historical sites such as former quarries, temples and shrines; a virtual tour of the island; and a documentary on Ubin’s boatmen.

The Singapore Heritage Society’s president, Dr Chua Ai Lin, a participant in the ministry’s Friends of Ubin Network sessions, said it is important that the interviews do more than collect dust on a shelf.

For instance, she believes residents should be asked to elaborate on and break down the aspects of island life to better understand what exactly constitutes “rustic”.

This in turn could help the Ubin way of life to “continue to thrive”, she said.

“It could range from their knowledge of agriculture, skills on repairing and living in wooden houses, and the mentality behind leading sustainable, kampung lifestyles,” she added.

Ubin resident Kamariah Abdullah, 57, who owns a century-old Malay kampung home which she restored with her family, agreed with Dr Chua.

She hopes the project will be able to capture the challenges of maintaining a traditional house and lifestyle.

Architectural historian Lai Chee Kien believes that the project can help supplement existing data on the island, which has seen its population dwindle over the years.

Although it receives more than 300,000 visitors annually, it is home to just 38 residents now, compared to the 2,000 who lived there from the 1950s to 1970s.

Said Dr Lai: “It is worthwhile to get as best a representation as possible on how islanders think and compare it against the record of the people who have already been interviewed in the past, to give context to the evolution of island life then and now.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

May 3, 2015
Aiseyman! Lee Kuan Yew Destroyed Our Local Malay Film Industry

“Can I use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house?” The film asked introspectively, the master alluding to the our late founding father Mr Lee Kuan Yew. Looking at the prosperity that sloshes around this island, I think it is easy to forget what was destroyed to achieve what we have today. Snakeskin, a part dream documentary, part city symphony, is a film directed by local filmmaker Daniel Hui, that was shown at the recently concluded Southeast Asian Film Festival 2015 organised by the Singapore Art Museum.

The film is set in year 2066, and the sole survivor of an enigmatic cult recounts his country’s traumatic history and reminisces about the oppression that has been inscribed on Singapore’s physical landscape. It traces the Japanese Occupation, Operation Coldstore and other chapters of Singapore’s history. One particular chapter worth highlighting was the destruction and demise of the Malay film industry in the 1960s; credit to Daniel Hui, a Chinese filmmaker for bringing out this latent issue carefully concealed among the local Malay identity.

In its heyday, the Malay film industry, epitomized by the legendary P Ramlee, was a creative cauldron financed by the Chinese, (the Shaw and Cathay enterprises), technically helmed by Indians from Bollywood and artistically inspired by Malays from Malaya. But the grand nationalism project of newly independent Singapore led by LKY meant that these vestiges of genuine inter-racial business cooperation and racial harmony was to be replaced by mistrust and tension so as to justify a new raison d’etre of growth at all costs and attracting western investments. Malay cultures, local traditions, Chinese schools, were systematically removed from the nation’s memory and siege mentality assumed control.

Using long shots and pensive moods, Daniel Hui’s narration speak to the long hollow corridors of our forgotten collective subconscious as a true Malayan people, “He (cult leader LKY) especially detested the Malay film industry. The radically egalitarian society these films dreamed of…he could never accept the idea in these films that the different races could live together as brothers. He needed us to believe that the different races lived in constant tension…that even the smallest spark can start a fire…”

Daniel Hui even managed to interview Yusnor Ef, one of the famous lyricist during the heyday of Malay cinematic grandeur. He penned lyrics to many hits, such Kasih Sayang Suami Isteri and Gelisah. As I watch Yusnor recount the splendor at Jalan Ampas (the film studio of Shaw Brothers), I mourn for the missed opportunities that my community could have had, but most of all, I mourn for the lost kampongs and the spirit that was destroyed along with our zinc roofs and wild fruit trees, to be replaced by mindless concrete and carefully manicured plants.A

If there was one line from a movie that stuck with me as the curtains were drawn, “He only wanted us to remember the legacy of the Chinese people, who according to him built Singapore. That meant erasing the Malay culture that came before the Chinese.”

I hope Snakeskin will one day make it to the big screen so that more young Malays and youths of other races can appreciate our history. Although it’s esoteric art form would probably mean negative profits. But as our nation celebrates its 50th birthday, it is timely for us to remember not only what we have created, but what we have destroyed.

Before the cult unleashes hell on me. RIP LKY.

Sharifah H.

Editor’s Note: This is a film review of the movie Snakeskin which was screened at the recent Southeast Asian Film Festival 2015. This is a contribution by our resident film critic.

Source: www.aiseyman.com

May 3, 2015
Teens Resorting To Illegal ADHD Drugs To Study For Exams

Secondary school students are taking mental stimulants meant to treat people with attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) during exam periods.

They believe the drug methylphenidate boosts concentration and keeps them awake, so they have more time to prepare for exams.

Secondary 3 student Jason says: “It is no different from an ultra strong coffee.

“It is a temporary discomfort and it screws up my sleep cycle, but it is worth it because I get more time to study.”

He is from a top school here.

But healthcare professionals caution against the misuse of these drugs as it could lead to addiction and dependency issues.

Source: www.tnp.sg

May 3, 2015