Two days ago I penned some thoughts to discuss how Singapore's Law Minister K. Shanmugam looks at the local media and its role, and the government's way to curb media excesses.
I was not asking for anyone's agreement, just to show this is how Press Freedom is viewed at in the country south of the Causeway.
A day later, the minister went up against a group of mostly American lawyers and spoke about something which I strongly support in Singapore - the Internal Security Act (ISA).
The issue is naturally controversial. And especially in Malaysia where there are loud voices for its abolition, especially after what were seen as clear-cut abuses in the recent past involving the former home minister of Malaysia.
And of course, there were suspicions of other abuses in the past.
In a neighbouring country, Indonesia, the ISA - much abused during Suharto's era - has been killed.
Everybody was happy until the terrorists in the likes of Dr Azahari Hussin and Noordin Top appeared. They bombed here and there, but Jakarta does not have laws that allow the government to nab these terrorist-types, their suspected sympathisers and financiers BEFORE something happened.
The preventive laws that allow the authorities to reel in suspects although there was not enough evidence to court yet, despite there being strong suspicions by the police, had been deleted after all.
Indonesia struggled on this and there are now voices about bringing the laws back. Some form of the I.S.A. law is being discussed - under another name.
They are discussing this although they know very well that much more checks and balances are needed this time around.
In Singapore, there are of course critics of the law - that it too was supposedly abused on political opponents of the PAP government.
A name that one will hear mentioned often in this debate is that of Chia Thye Poh, a former (?) Communist guy who was detained for long, long years under the I.S.A., because the government said he did not want to disavow violence for his cause (The critics have their own views on this, of course).
Anyway, let me tell you why I support the ISA law in Singapore.
It is simply that I have seen it being used against people who would have done a lot of harm to Singapore. A hell of a lot of harm.
Read Shanmugam's views on the I.S.A. here , and its checks and balances - see below the posting to see what critics say. Yes, there ARE websites critical of the Singapore government too, dolt.
And the minister spoke about Singapore's tough laws also, that made everybody feel safe, ie low crime rate (I didn't say 'zero').
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