SINGAPORE
YORK INK Today-Apr 26
Singapore’s ambassador to the United States rebutted a New York Times opinion piece by freelance journalist Kirsten Han, saying she portrayed Singapore as an “authoritarian paradise, where critics of the government are squelched and drug traffickers are hanged”.
Mr Ashok Kumar Mirpuri said that he could not recognise the country Ms Han described in her March 29 article, titled “What Trump is Learning from Singapore – and Vice Versa”.
Ms Han wrote that American president Donald Trump and the Singapore Government are seemingly drawing lessons from each other on two issues.
The first was Mr Trump’s reported interest in learning more about Singapore’s approach to drug trafficking, which includes the death penalty. The second was a Singapore parliamentary committee set up to mull over ways to tackle deliberate online falsehoods, or “fake news”, which she said hint at “new restrictions on the media”.
“Mr Trump constantly proclaims that his ‘America First’ policy will prevent the United States from being taken for a ride by other countries, while Singapore denounces foreign interference in its domestic politics,” she wrote. “Yet when the occasion suits, both are more than happy to borrow ideas from elsewhere to control their populations… Both Mr Trump and the Singapore Government have little time for human rights, civil liberties or even openness and accountability when there’s something they want to achieve.”
In his response, which was also published by The New York Times, Mr Mirpuri said that Singapore, like many countries, is trying to deal with the spread of falsehoods online, which can undermine democracy and social cohesion. “As a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society, we cannot give bigotry free rein.”
He also said that more than 60 international media organizations are accredited in Singapore and the country debates issues “vigorously, online and off”.
On laws against drug trafficking, he pointed out that Singapore is a major port and financial center sited in a region where heroin is produced and drug abuse is a major problem. “Without strict laws and enforcement, we would long have become a magnet for international drug traffickers,” he said.
Noting that the US government’s “World Factbook” characterises Singapore as remarkably open and corruption free, he therefore “cannot recognise the country Ms Han describes”.
