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译者：新加坡文献馆 李显龙总理 总理办公室 总统府 新加坡238823 巴黎2010年3月25日 尊敬的总理 又有一家外国的新闻机构被逼向你和你的父亲道歉以及赔偿一笔巨款，为的是发表了一篇你不喜欢的文章。这回是纽约时报公司 (New York Times Co) 成为双倍罚款的受害者，因为顺从的法庭一向来都在由你向外国传媒提出的司法诉讼上让你和你的家属获得有利判决。 在纽约时报公司之前，你成功的惩罚了远东经济论坛，亚洲金融网站，经济学人，国际先驱论坛报，亚洲华尔街日报；都由于报导了你国内的政治与经济状况。 由于受到诉讼的威胁纽约时报公司向你和你的父亲李光耀道歉，这是因为2月15日国际先驱论坛报，刊登了一篇由菲普力包林（弘宝灵）撰写的《全是一家人》。 除了道歉之外，这家美国传媒公司也必须支付114,000美元的赔偿。你的律师文达星说包林的文章违反了你们家庭与国际先驱论坛报之间的一份‘协议书’，这家公司在1994年也因为一篇文章《亚洲价值观的好处经不起考验》而遭判决赔偿一笔巨款。 如今已经停刊的远东经济论坛在上年头的11月，在拖延了长久的法律纠葛后，也支付你和你的父亲290,000美元的赔偿。虽然缺乏证据新加坡的法官在初审与上诉审讯时不考虑到新闻报道自由还是给予对你有利的判决。 无国界记者组织谴责你和你的父亲多年以来利用的司法骚扰，去阻止外国新闻媒体从近距离报道你如何治理你的国家。这将会对新加坡的新闻自由带来严重与长久的伤害。 你的政府持续不断的表示无法容忍外国记者是令人不安的表态。比如，上年头10月，本布兰德一名为经济学人和每日电讯报供稿的英国自由撰稿人，就遭拒绝入境签 证，以及采访在新加坡举行的亚太经合组织峰会的许可证。‘我被迫离开新加坡因为政府拒绝重批我的工作签证，对此政府亦无提出解释’，布兰德如是的告诉了无 国界记者组织。 但是，审查制度最终影响了本地传媒报道与本地艺术家的创作。比如，2009年10月，新闻与通讯部持续禁止由一名新加坡电影人施忠明制作的有关异议者赛扎哈里的记录片。可以在此观看这影片http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOI2… 在回应无国界记者组织发布的2009年报业自由指标报告中，新加坡位例175个国家中的第133名次，你的法律部长尚牟甘形容这份报告为‘荒唐’与‘脱离现实’。 很不幸的，现实情况指出我们的观点是对的。 自你担任总理的6年以来，你倡议‘开放’社会，在自由言论上却没有多少的改善。 我们由此觉得你的政府有必要立即着手进行一些措施。 1、停止诽谤诉讼，这是你和你的亲属用来对付那些用独立眼光去报道新加坡发展的新加坡和外国传媒。联合国的自由言论特别报告员说，总理，他的部长们和高级官僚们必须克制对记者们的文章与批评提出控诉。 2、修订刑事法以删除对报业法律上违规者的囚禁。 3、修订报业法令，特别是有关批准出版许可证的有关条文。目前的一些限制阻止了独立传媒的出现。电影法令也应该来得更宽松。 4，修改国家安全法令以便消除行政理由上的拘押，这种做法让有关当局基于个人的思想而将他逮捕囚禁。 5、重组媒体发展管理局，使到这个单位不再有权审查和单独的对电视节目与电影给予建议。 6、允许政府的对手和公民团体代表在不设局限下接触大众传媒。 7、保证报业控股和新传媒旗下的所有媒体享有社论自由。 8、把你们家庭的得自外国与本地传媒的全部赔款转移到一个由无国界记者有意设立的基金会以支持那些遭囚禁的记者们。 我们感到遗憾，你的政府同僚和你的父亲持续的认为有必要保证新加坡的稳定是控制传媒和维持严刑峻法的理由。一些非常尊重报业自由的国家，比如芬兰和挪威，是和平与繁荣的民主政体。言论自由不是政治动乱的源头，事实上，这恰好相反。 你延续了你父亲的传统，继续的骚扰和恐吓新闻媒体。其结果是，除了几个专注于新加坡的网站之外，你的国家内没有新闻单位可以去报道涉及政治情势的独立性新闻与资讯。 我们期望有幸和你面对面会谈，以讨论我们所观察到的现象，以及我们对保证新加坡报业自由的建议。 恭敬的， 朱利亚 《无国界记者组织》秘书长 来源：http://www.rsf.org/Open-letter-to-Prime-Minister-Lee,36832.html  Read More →

By Jessica Vascellaro from Wall Street Journal, 25 March 2010 BEHIND Google's dramatic decision to close its China-based search engine this week was co-founder Sergey Brin's change of heart about the compromises required to do business in a land that was increasingly reminding him of his native Soviet Union. The beginning of that change came just after the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Mr Brin said in an interview about the China decision. As the glow of the Olympics faded, he said, the Chinese government began cranking up its web censorship and interfering more with Google's business. Around that time, he said, the murky rules of doing business in China grew even murkier. "China was ever-present," he said. "One out of five meetings I attended had some component that applied to China in a different way than other countries." Mr Brin said he was also moved by growing evidence in China of repressive behaviour he remembered from the Soviet Union, which he and his parents fled when he was six years old. He said memories of that time - having his home visited by Russian police; the anti-Semitic discrimination against his father - emboldened his view that it was time to abandon Google's policy. China has "made great strides against poverty and whatnot," Mr Brin said. "But nevertheless, in some aspects of their policy, particularly with respect to censorship, with respect to surveillance of dissidents, I see the same earmarks of totalitarianism, and I find that personally quite troubling." On January 12, Google said it would stop self-censoring its search engine in China, citing cyber-attacks it believes were motivated by an attempt to spy on Chinese activists' emails. On Monday, Google implemented that policy, routing mainland users of its search engine to a site in Hong Kong that the company wasn't censoring. The cyber attacks were the "straw that broke the camel's back," Mr Brin said. A heated debate in the company about whether to cease censoring ensued, say people familiar with the matter. Mr Brin and other executives prevailed over chief executive Eric Schmidt and others who felt that Google ought to stay the course in China to continue to push its principles from the inside, say people familiar with the discussions. "We did have a long conversation about it, several long conversations," Mr Brin said. "We heard all the arguments." When asked if Mr Schmidt and co-founder Larry Page were available for comment, a Google spokeswoman said Mr Brin was speaking on behalf of the company. What's next for Google in China is uncertain. Its business is in jeopardy. Some partners - like Hong Kong media company TOM Group - dropped their search agreements with Google, citing the need to abide by Chinese law. Employees are contemplating defecting to rivals like Microsoft, according to recruiters. Beijing has called the move "totally wrong" and internet experts are sceptical that China will let Google continue to route traffic from its China site to Hong Kong. While Google isn't censoring that site, China's routine Internet filters are blocking some results for users in China. Mr Brin's doubts over Google's early agreement to censor in China hark back to his childhood in the Soviet Union, which he and his family left in 1979 to escape anti-Semitism. Mr Brin was six, but he said he is reminded of the constant fear of surveillance through memories such as police visiting his family's apartment to question his parents after they made the decision to emigrate. To this day, Mr Brin said, he and his family often reflect on the significance of the move. His father, he said, wanted to be an astrophysicist, but because of ethnic discrimination became a mathematician. He relished the freedom to pursue "his own entrepreneurial dreams," he said. His father became a professor of mathematics at the University of Maryland. - Wall Street Journal  Read More →

OPINION The Singapore media is never known for fair and balanced coverage on local politics. All the papers in Singapore are owned by Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) whose Chairman is none other than Dr Tony Tan, a former PAP minister. Not surprisingly, its articles are largely pro-PAP with little coverage on the opposition such that it appears to be virtually non-existent though opposition leaders have been working the ground hard in between the elections. Of all the opposition parties in Singapore, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) has suffered the most under the relentless attack of the mainstream media and its Secretary-General Dr Chee Soon Juan has even been labelled as suffering from a personality disorder by a Senior Correspondent of the Straits Times. One former SPH journalist we spoke to revealed that the atmosphere in SPH is "politically charged". The senior editors are almost always PAP people and they are extremely careful not to publish any articles which may put their political masters in a bad light. As for the opposition, utmost caution has been given not to "promote" them excessively to the detriment of the PAP. For example, Workers' Party Glenda Han used to have a column on a local paper, but was taken out after feedback from the "above". Under such trying circumstances, some opposition leaders avoid the mainstream media like a plague as exemplified by Workers' Party MP Low Thia Kiang. Others like as SDP makes use of the New Media to bypass the mainstream media to get their message across. When Lianhe Zaobao published an article of the SDP's 30th anniversary dinner and an extensive interview with SDP, it is probably the first time in many years that SDP is given a relatively positive coverage in the local press. Unfortunately, it turns out to be another false dawn as SDP took issue with a segment of the interview which appeared to portray Dr Chee as being "evasive" and having something to "hide" regarding his source of income. Dr Chee wrote a letter to the Straits Times Forum accusing the Zaobao journalist who interviewed him. Ms Yew Run Tian for painting him in a bad light: “The way that the report is written is clearly an attempt to portray me as being evasive about my income. I had told the Zaobao reporter, Ms Yew Lun Tian, clearly that I depended on my books and from time to time, help from my relatives for survival. Because she found it hard to believe that this was sufficient, I told her that we lived simply and frugally……Yet Ms Yew reported it in such a way that I was trying to avoid her answer and had something to hide. What is left unsaid, although clearly implied, is that I may be a stooge of a foreign agent conducting activities against Singapore.” (read letter here) Ms Yew subsequently clarified on her Facebook that she wrote the interview as such because Dr Chee really sounded evasive and hesistant when she spoke to him. Naturally, not many accepted Ms Yew's explanation and she received a lot of brickbats from netizens for "sabotaging" Dr Chee yet again. While the reaction from Dr Chee is predictable, the tone of his letter sounded a bit too harsh on Ms Yew who had taken the initiative to moot the idea of interviewing him to her superior. Regardless of Ms Yew's real motives, it may be more tactical and diplomatic simply to state one's own stance without sounding emotional or defensive which may raise more doubts in the minds of some readers. It is difficult but not impossible for the opposition to overcome its inherent inhibition, suspicion and distrust of the mainstream media. Though the New Media is gaining ground among young Singaporeans, it still has a limited reach compared to the mass media in Singapore. It may be prudent and wise to start cultivating ties with some SPH journalists rather than alienating everybody by painting them as PAP stooges in a single stroke which will not serve the opposition cause in anyway. Judging from the articles written by some young journalists like Ms Yew, Ms Rachal Chang, Mr Jeremy Au Yong and Mr Kor Kian Beng, they are by and large quite objective, factual and balanced. Young journalists today are more open, liberal and exposed than their predecessors. Not all of them have been bought over by the PAP. There will and still exist some who are trying to work within the system to bring about change. It is not easy to practise journalism in Singapore. Young journalists are not paid well and have to put up with long working hours, weekend assignments and sometimes even spending the nights in office rushing to complete an article by its stipulated dateline. Furthermore, they have to put up with snide remarks from fellow Singaporeans on being the "mouthpieces" of the PAP as well as demanding and unreasonable superiors who sometimes edit their work beyond recognition just to be politically correct. We should always keep our channels of communications with one another. There are no permanent friends or foes in politics. An enemy in the past may turn out to be a treasured ally in the future. Perhaps it is time for the opposition to put down its historical baggage and enmity with the Singapore media and start their relationship afresh again. We are fighting for the rights of all Singaporeans including journalists, civil servants and PAP supporters. If we do not have a big enough heart to embrace our detractors, critics and enemies, how can we ever hope to achieve bigger things in life later on?   EDITORS’ NOTE: Please join our Facebook discussion on this article here and invite your friends to do so as well to raise awareness among fellow Singaporeans.   Related articles: >> Dr Chee replies to Zaobao journalist's clarification >> Zaobao journalist posts clarification on her Facebook  Read More →