TR EMERITUS

作者：Dr Wong Wee Nam 译者：新加坡文献馆 “当你还未完全剥夺一切，你可以用权力控制人民。但是当你完全抢夺了一个人所拥有的一切，他就再也不受你控制 – 他已经重获自由。” –亚历山大 索尔仁尼琴 ( Alexander Solzhenitsyn ) 林福寿医生 2002年7月在已故李绍祖医生的守灵之夜，我第一次遇见他。这时已经是他获得释放之后的第20个年头，前此，他被囚禁了近20年之久。我看到坐在另一张桌子边上的一位朋友于是上前向她打个招呼。他正好就坐在旁边，于是她介绍我们认识。 那是我首次见到他的面貌长相。 我在孩童年纪时就已听说过有关他的事迹。他是我居所左近的一个菜市场里一位著名鱼贩的儿子。他的父亲之所以出名是因为他有一个很聪明的儿子。在那年代的穷人群里很难会有做医生的儿女。 我在孩童时知道他也是因为他是名医生。他的医务诊所不单为有困难者提供免费的医疗，也使用真材实料的药剂。他甚至于会给予他们回家的车费。这不足为奇，他相信疾病并不是单纯的由于人体缺乏铁质而是因为贫穷。 我没有认出他是谁，这是情有可原的，那是因为他的照片从未在报章上刊登或出现在电视上。当他被囚禁时没有任何有关他的状况报导，他在释放后亦没有任何相关的消息。 虽然面对新闻上的封锁，以及他本身的低调姿态，他依然是政治界的传奇人物，他是续谢太宝之后的第二位最长期拘留者。因此，在将他介绍给我认识的当儿，我的反应是极其的兴奋，并夹带着惊奇和不安。 他以十分温和与友善的语调使我安静下来，问我是否就是那位给报纸写信的书写者。他的诚恳与谦虚让我感动。 之后，我偶而在一些医学会议与讲座上见到他。我们只是打个招呼相互问好，从来没有谈论时事。他告诉我他在我的博客上阅读了我的文章，但他从未尝试和我就这些议题进行讨论。到了人生的这个阶段，我认为他已经跨越了这些世俗。 很不平常的，在我和他的会面中他从来没有，即便仅仅一次，表现出任何的怀恨抱怨，那些剥夺了他生命中最宝贵的20年人生，不论是对他们中的任何一个人或者机构。 1963年他遭逮捕因为他被视为是一名危害新加坡治安的人物。要被关押在监狱里20年，他在被捕前的生活必然是那么样的多姿多彩，或者至少会等同那位默.沙勒末。然而，在我翻阅了许多有关那个年代的书本后（包括他当年的同志所撰写的），只找到很少的有提及到他的事项。 必然的，作为一名危害治安而要遭受20年长期囚禁者，必定会有许许多多的公开档案记载着他的种种活动，足以让电影导演去拍摄相当长度的政治悬疑剧。或许，有那么的一天，档案局可以让我们知道他干过那些勾当，如果有这些活动的话。 最 近，在《华惹那一代》新书发布会上，电影制片人施忠明录制了他的演说，并在YouTube上播放。这个记录片如今已经被禁播。不可能是因为影片危害了治安 而遭禁止。那段演说并不激烈，里边没有谴责政府的气愤言词，没有鼓动暴力，没有呼吁武力对抗，没有呼吁推翻任何人，也没有呼吁团结鼓舞听众起义。诚然，这 远比竞选群众大会还要来得更为温和。 在这段影片制作和播放后的好几个月里，并没有投资者因为治安而从新加坡撤资，事实上，经济出现了复苏回弹。然而，在无法解释的情况下，禁止了这套录像影片。 或 许这其中是有个原因的。这套影片很可能会改变人民对林福寿医生的印象。他给人的感觉是一个稳重和有尊严的人。没有展示任何愤慨和怀恨之心。他的智慧完好无 损，他有着清醒的思维。在柔弱的身躯里包裹着一个坚强的个性。他看来慈祥，具父辈的形象，这个形体很难让人把他当成是一个有能力拍打苍蝇或者打死蚊子，更 何况会伤害另一个人类生命。在一个谦逊君子的外表下人民可以感觉到那是一个不屈不挠的无比勇敢者。 观看他的演说让我回想起庄子《秋水》里的一篇寓言故事。 孔子在周游列国时，宋国的军队把他团团围住。但是他还是继续高歌和弹奏琵琶，无视眼前的困境。子路，他的弟子问道：夫子，为何你还是玩得如此的快乐？ 孔子回答说：长久以来，我一直尝试避开困难但皆失败了。这是因为命运的缘故。我亦努力去取得成就但亦失败了，这是由于时代的因素。 “在尧舜时代，那时没有困难，这无关乎一个人的智慧。在桀王与纣王时代，人们没有获得成功并非因为没有智慧。那是由于受制于年代和环境。” “要穿越河川而不惧怕海上蛟龙需要有渔夫的胆量。在陆上行走而不惧怕老虎猛兽需要有猎人的勇气。面对锋芒的利刃而不惧怕死亡需要有烈士的豪气。” “体会困境是命运的安排，而成功则是时间的恰当安排，在面对巨大的困难时毫不恐惧或胆怯就需要有圣人之勇。 知穷之有命，知通之有时，临大难而不惧者，圣人之勇也。 林福寿医生或许是亦或许不是一名圣人，但是，他必定是一名很了不起的君子。他被人冷藏了20年之后，他又静悄悄的活了28年。然而，他在新书发布会上的演说，还是引发了足够的焦虑以至于要禁止那套录影片。 那真是匪夷所思！ 文章来源：http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=4214  Read More →

作者:冀居·谢 新加坡人付给部长百万年薪，原来是为了听他们耍嘴皮子！而且层级是一个比一个高，最初级是矢口否认，第二是推诿卸责，第三是玩概率的计算。 李资政一反过去的做法，替自己的儿子背起书来，他说：“无论当局进行多少工程，也无法完全避免淹水”——这句话的确是无懈可击，因为只要新加坡还有一处在雨天或海水涨潮的时候淹水，这句话也仍然是成立的。 到现在新加坡人应该意识到，付这么高薪给这些没有担戴的政客是多么愚蠢的一回事。 根据李光耀过去的作风，他应该逐一针对武吉智马淹水、乌节路淹水的解决提出方案，然后定下完成的时间表，让有关部门和它的部长承受压力，好过教我们认识数学概率。 大马论坛  Read More →

To give a new twist to an old saying: Justice unevenly applied is justice denied. Alan Shadrake, in his new book, Once a Jolly Hangman — Singapore justice in the dock, shows how uneven it is. It’s a tour de force covering cases from the early 1990s to nearly the present, many of them ending with the prisoner meeting Darshan Singh, Singapore’s hangman for the last half-century. But some of them do not meet this fate, and therein lies the twist. When clemency campaigns are mounted and the occasional blog takes an interest, the story centres on a particular death row prisoner and for a particular crime, and understandably so. However, the result is that while we see a particular case, we seldom have the opportunity to see how the death penalty is used across a number of years. With the release of this book, we cannot now say we can’t take in the bigger picture. Once a Jolly Hangman allows us to compare how one case was handled with another that had similar circumstances or gravity. What emerges is a very unflattering pattern of inconsistent “justice”, the dispensation of which is compromised in three important ways: 1. When foreign governments have clout over our economic interests and are willing to use that clout, their citizens will not face the death penalty; 2. When local citizens come from rich, well-connected families, or when a case threatens to involve others from this stratum of society, a way is found to avoid having them face the death penalty or even severe penalties; 3. When the state is convinced that an accused who is poor and “low-class” is guilty, and provided that exception no. 1 above does not apply, due process is less important than putting him on the fast-track to the noose. The net outcome of these controlling conditions is that the application of capital punishment in Singapore is not a matter of justice. The most important decision as to whether someone is to be hanged is really a political one: some people can be hanged, others just cannot be hanged, and it is the government that determines who, not a court. Condition no. 1 and 2 above can be expressed graphically: Compare the case of Amara Tochi from Nigeria (Chapter 20) with Julia Bohl from Germany. Tochi was caught by chance at Changi Airport with more than 15 grams of heroin (the threshold that makes the death penalty mandatory) in his bag given to him by a man he hardly knew in Pakistan. The judge made the following finding of fact at his trial: “There was no direct evidence that he knew the capsules contained diamorphine. There was nothing to suggest that Smith had told him they contained diamorphine, or that he had found out on his own.” Nonetheless,  Tochi was found guilty because the judge felt he ought to have known and he could not prove the negative, i.e. he could not prove that he really didn’t know. This is because Singapore law on drug cases imposes a presumption of guilt, not innocence. It is for the accused to prove his innocence, not for the prosecution to prove guilt. Tochi was hanged January 2007. Julia Bohl (Chapter 10) had been closely watched by the Central Narcotics Bureau for several months as a supplier of various party drugs to high society. Piecing together various reports, Shadrake shows that an undercover officer was planted in her company, eventually gaining her confidence. In a raid mounted on a party one night in March 2002, Bohl and several others were arrested, with Bohl charged for having 687 grams of cannabis in her possession, above the 500-gram threshold that mandates the death penalty. The German government applied maximum pressure on Singapore, threatening economic reprisals.  The seized drugs (all or part of it?) were then re-analysed by a laboratory which issued a  new report that said there were just 281 grams. She was sentenced to five years in jail, serving only three. One of Bohl’s likely customers and sub-seller was Mike McCrea. He killed his driver Kho Nai Guan and Kho’s girlfriend Lan Ya Ming, most probably due a dispute over a theft of a stash of drugs. However, by the time the bodies of Kho and Lan were discovered, McCrea had fled, first to Britain, then to Australia. Singapore tried to get him extradited, but Australia would not agree if doing so meant that someone faced execution. So a bargain was struck and McCrea faced only the reduced charge of culpable homicide that carried a maximum penalty of 10 years’ imprisonment for each killing. After another lengthy investigation, a series of arrests were made in October 2004 (Chapter 17). Sixteen Singaporeans and seven foreigners, including two permanent residents were arrested and faced a variety of charges ranging from consumption to dealing. One of the accused was Dinesh Singh Bhatia, the son of former judicial commissioner Amarjeet Singh. He faced 10 years behind bars for consumption. His defence lawyer, K Shanmugam (now the Minister for Law) submitted to the trial judge that Dinesh Bhatia did not know it was cocaine that he was snorting. (I can’t for the life of me think of any other substance that one would snort, and no, snuff is not snorted in the same way). In the end, after appeal, Bhatia’s sentence was reduced to eight months, but less than three months after that, he was reported by the Straits Times to be at home, albeit wearing an electronic tag. Others rounded up, all members of high society (financial broker, managing director of an oil trading firm, award-winning chef, etc), similarly got just months in jail when convicted. Investigations pointed to a Tunisian, Guiga Lyes Ben Laroussi, as the main supplier, himself a high-ranking executive. Laroussi was arrested on the capital charge of trafficking, but when the haul was assayed a second time, the quantity he was accused of diminished miraculously below the mandatory hanging threshold. Then he was given bail on his own recognition, upon which he promptly disappeared from Singapore, even though his passport had been impounded. No serious attempts have been made to find him or to press Interpol for assistance, despite having him listed there for years. Without Laroussi, it has been hard to follow up with other arrests. As Shadrake wrote in the book (pages 145 – 146): During the CNB investigation [Laroussi] refused to name any of his other customers — while hinting there were more prominent members of Singapore’s high society he could expose as serious drug users, which, I was reliably informed, would create an even bigger scandal among the country’s elite. He decided to hold on to his secret list of clients as a bargaining chip — his ace in the hole — when the time was right, when the shadow of the gallows loomed. But it was this plea bargaining strategy that the authorities were only too pleased to entertain. ‘They were terrified that if he were to be tried for a capital offence with the gallows as the end game, he would first “blow the lid off” Singapore’, a lawyer close to the case told me. Shadrake interviewed a number of lawyers and persons involved in investigations while researching for this book. He had to promise confidentiality to his informants, one of whom, perhaps the most useful, was a former Central Narcotics Bureau officer who was angered by the way things worked. The case that the book details in support of the third contention — that due process is sometimes less important than putting someone on the fast track to the noose — is the most disturbing. Chapter 18 recounts how Vignes Mourthi, a Malaysian who commuted to Singapore for work, was found guilty of trafficking 27.65 grams of heroin in 2002. Vignes claimed at his trial that he did not know he had heroin on him; he thought that what he had been given to hand over to a contact was a pack of precious incense stones used in Hindu worship, a claim of innocence he maintained throughout. The prosecution’s case and the verdict rested mainly on a handwritten note by the arresting officer recording the alleged conversation that took place between the officer Rajkumar and Vignes just before the arrest on 20 September 2001. Rajkumar was posing as the buyer and in his undated note said that Vignes’ replies during the short conversation indicated the latter knew that what he had handed over were drugs. There was no corroboration of the account contained in this handwritten note, nor even any indication it was not written up far later, yet it was what the judge relied on to convict Vignes. Vignes was hanged on 26 September 2003. The day after Rajkumar arrested Vignes, a woman accused Rajkumar of raping and sodomising her. Two days later, on 23 September 2001, Rajkumar himself was arrested on these complaints. He was apparently not suspended from duty and continued to be part of the prosecution’s case against Vignes. Eventually, the woman withdrew her accusations, but by then, police investigations had begun of Rajkumar and fellow officer Balbir Singh for offering large amounts of money to the woman to persuade her to do so. The men were later found guilty of corruption and sentenced to fifteen and six months’ imprisonment respectively. Page 161: But it was not until Vignes Mourthi was hanged that Rajkumar’s trial began. When Rajkumar, whose contested testimony had sent Vignes Mourthi to the gallows, was sentenced, Judge Sia Aik Kor described his actions as ‘so obviously corrupt by the ordinary and objective standard that he must know his conduct is corrupt’. The judge also cited a precedent which found actions to be ‘akin to an attempt to subvert the course of justice’. So if he could subvert the course of justice to save himself from a long prison term, was he also capable of inventing those damning words that confirmed, in the eyes of trial judges, that Vignes Mourthi knew what he was doing? First of all, isn’t it interesting that a case of rape, sodomy and corruption from an arrest of 23 September 2001 languishes for years while a capital case arising from an arrest of 20 September 2001 is finished and done with more quickly? Shadrake pointed out that the police and very likely the Attorney-General’s Chambers knew even as Vignes was on trial, that their chief prosecution witness Rajkumar was himself under investigation for corruption and subverting justice. Surely this must be pertinent to Vignes’ case? Would knowledge of this not have been grounds for impeaching Rajkumar’s credibility and for reasonable doubt in Vignes’ case? Shadrake asks why there was silence throughout; why Rajkumar’s trial didn’t commence until Vignes had been hanged. I would ask: Was the silence judged necessary to avoid an embarrassing collapse of the case against Vignes? Was it felt that it was more important not to have it collapse, more important to protect the idea of the death penalty from disrepute, the image of police and prosecutorial infallibility, than the question of true justice to a man? * * * * * Defenders of capital punishment have to assume that this extreme penalty is applied fairly and the process is unimpeachable; that issues such as  presumption of innocence and integrity of evidence are totally above board. That verdicts reached are safe. Anything short of an extremely high standard of probity and equal application would undercut the moral basis for taking a life. It would be unconscionable if the death penalty is applicable for some and not applicable to others accused of similar crimes.  It would be unconscionable if process is a slapdash construction of toothpicks. And yet it is. Because so many laws mandate the death penalty, tying the hands of judges, the real decider as to who hangs and who does not is the prosecutor through his ability to pick and choose what charges to level at the accused.  It stinks when the quantum of drugs the accused is charged with handling can go up or down depending on the day of the week or phase of the moon. It is putrid when allegedly key dealers friendly with the upper crust of society can get bail and escape from this island while friendless (alleged) mules get their cases rushed through. What this book shows is that defenders of capital punishment in Singapore have no basis to make their critical assumptions. If anything, the cases recounted by Shadrake show an unevenness, almost a capriciousness, that should make Singaporeans hang their heads in shame. Alan Shadrake has done great service to this country through his investigative work. By providing both the comparative overview and the case details that shatter complacent assumptions, he has delineated the baseline which any debate about capital punishment has to proceed from. From today, if you have not read his book, you have no basis to even talk about our (mis)use of the death penalty.     Au Waipang The writer blogs at http://yawningbread.wordpress.com/  Read More →