Know Your Rights, Don't Be Too Mellow

Introduction

A very good evening to the distinguished Chair, Mr. Samydorai, Master of Ceremony, Mr. Melvin Tan, fellow panelists, civil activists and friends, it is indeed a great honour and a pleasant surprise to be invited by Think Centre (TC) as a guest speaker for this International Human Rights Day Commemoration Forum. I am truly astonished by the invitation because as compared to the other more eminent panelists and some of those from the floor, I am nothing but a "political baby" who has barely completed his breastfeeding yet. However, I am not going to let my seemingly lack of civil and political experience to dissuade me from sharing with you my two pence worth of opinion on the much ignored subject of human rights in our local context. To toe TC's line of injecting some fun into our lacklustre political society, I have followed up on the title of this forum "Free Your Mind & The Rest Will Follow" by giving my speech a teasing title: "Know Your Rights, Don't Be Too Mellow". Indeed, I hope to present my points for this evening in a lighthearted and less academic fashion with the aim of warning the indifferent majority who are oblivious of their birth rights.

"No human rights, please! We are Singaporeans."

First and foremost, allow me to relate an interesting conversation that I had with a close Cambodian friend of mine whom I met in an overseas workshop in South Korea last year. In the midst of our discussion on the difficulties of raising human rights awareness in our respective countries, he highlighted that he had once urged one of his peers to "uphold" human rights as there were widespread abuses across Cambodia. In return, his bemused friend literally lifted up his right arm and remarked, "There. I still haven't lost my right arm so what human rights abuses are you talking about?" After I had painstakingly held back my laughter, my Cambodian friend asked me if Singaporeans would react in the same manner. Instantaneously, I blew out my stomach, pointed at it and answered: "That's probably the only right they care about".

Looking back and with due respect to the Cambodians, one may perhaps not find their apathy and ignorance exactly startling at all, considering the fact that close to two-thirds of its populace is illiterate and its educational system is in shambles. However, if we pit ourselves against our less illustrious Southeast Asian neighbour based on the same educational aspects which the PAP government is always so fond of doing, we will ultimately slap ourselves and find that we have run out of valid excuses to justify our own reservations and impassiveness in human rights issues. If this is really the case and there is no concrete ground for Singaporeans to snub human rights, then what has exactly gone wrong with our society today? Which societal component has bungled in its function and has invariably consigned us to this pathetic plight? Even before we begin to clarify these doubts, I am sure some of you will have arrived at the same conclusion as mine and will fervently point an accusing finger at the PAP establishment.

To those who still remain clueless, let me quote a few specific instances whereby the PAP government has gravely violated or seized the rights of our citizens right under our very noses, which is a clear contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that were adopted by the United Nations 53 years ago.

"Canned" freedom of speech

Article 19 states that "everyone has the right to freedom of expression".

Article 20(1) states that "everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly".

I am sure some of you might recall that this evening's event was celebrated in a different kind of atmosphere last year. Both the TC and the Open Singapore Centre (OSC), which is incidentally a joint civil society effort by Mr. JB. Jeyaretnam and Dr. Chee Soon Juan, held a peaceful protest at the Speakers' Corner to demonstrate against the much feared Internal Security Act (ISA) which empowers the government to arrest any individual who is believed to be a "communist insurgent or a threat to national security". Barring some singing, slogan chanting, fist clenching and banner display, those who were fortunate enough to grace the occasion could easily vouch that there was no semblance of any kind of "disorderly behaviour" or aggravated violence, let alone a fly was hurt.

However, no thanks to an exaggerated "tip-off" from a member of public in a local newspaper, the authorities promptly hauled up ex-TC Executive Director, James Gomez and my Young Democrats' President and OSC Program Coordinator, Kevin Liew for investigations. All of a sudden, those who had assembled at the Speaker's Corner on that day seemed to have done so on illegal grounds. Though all sense prevailed in the end when both activists were let off with written warnings, this farcical episode has inevitably unveiled a ludicrous fact of the so-called Speakers' Corner- that we are entitled to the freedom of speech but at the expense of our freedom of expression and assembly.

Cyber nanny or cyber police?

Article 19 also states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers".

Just after the recent elections, some of you might have heard about a certain cyber government critic who was arrested for insinuating voters on a political website to enter other balloting stations which they did not belong to. The pretext of his challenge was that voters who took up his suggestions would not be breaching any electoral laws since the Prime Minister and his colleagues did exactly that in the last General Elections and the Attorney-General had nonchalantly defended their actions because they were not "loitering in any street or public place within a radius of 200 metres of any polling station on polling day".

The thrust of my assertion is not centred around the legal technicalities surrounding the critic's political experiment but rather to content the enigma behind his eventual arrest. How did the authorities manage to track him down since he had signed off as a pseudonym? Had they been monitoring his Internet account for a certain period before his arrest? Undoubtedly, if the authorities were blessed with such advanced cyber capabilities, then those of you who happened to receive TC's private invitation for this forum by e-mail would have realized that this evening's event is not as "private" an affair as you might have thought initially.

Singapore's public service: no longer a citizenry entitlement

Article 21(2) states that "everyone has the right to equal access to public service in his country".

It is an open secret in Singapore that you must be an unintelligent, fanatical and courageous lot to forgo your public housing upgrading and other novel public facilities such as public transport, hospitals, schools, libraries, playgrounds and even covered walkways by returning an opposition candidate in the ward where you reside. Since the 1997 General Elections, the ruling party had wielded this trump card successfully to "win elections with their hands down". It had even proceeded on to a bizarre stage whereby a vote against the establishment could virtually "turn your homes into slumps overnight".

Threat or treat, judging by the amount of success that the PAP had attained from its replicated election strategy and the positive response in return, it seems that Singaporeans have been conditioned to think that it is a norm for the PAP to associate their ballots with their social amenities. In one way or another, they have somehow forgotten that as citizens of this nation, they possess a rightful claim to all public services and it is only appropriate for them to enjoy these basic rights, not privileges- regardless of their political beliefs and opinions.

Conclusion

To wrap up, the few points I have raised are only part of a long list of gross human rights misconduct that may have gone unchecked and unnoticed. It is appalling to note that behind the façade of economic success and social calmness, our citizens have inadvertently concede their inalienable rights and will continue to do so, unless they are prepared to acknowledge the universality of human rights- that they too, want to be treated as dignified and respectable human beings, not mere economic digits.

Thank you.

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