TR EMERITUS

The authorities continued to restrict freedoms of speech and assembly in 2009. In April, Singapore’s legislature passed a measure that would require police permission for public assemblies of all sizes, removing a previous threshold of five or more people. In October, the Far Eastern Economic Review lost an appeal in a defamation... 

Photo source: Reuters “The public should decide at least for once,” said Mr M Ravi, defence lawyer for Mr Alan Shadrake. Mr Ravi was responding to a question from Justice Quentin Loh about who should decide on whether statements from Shadrake’s book Once A Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Docks are contemptuous. Mr... 

Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad today called democracy a “failed” ideology and held up China’s model of authoritarianism as an alternative “worth studying”. He said China’s political model — which he termed the “Beijing Consensus” — showed that a nation could develop well even in the absence...