Tuesday, June 03, 2014

Social media uprising in Singapore: the Roy Ngerng affair...

A blogger facing a defamation suit launched by Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong -- apparently the first against a blogger in the island republic – has chosen to fight the case and hundreds of Singaporeans have come to his aid.

The blogger, Roy Ngerng, alleged in a May 15 posting on his “Heart Truths blog that Lee had diverted money from the country’s central provident fund. When the prime minister threatened suit, Ngerng withdrew the offending article but posted more blogs raising questions about the CPF without directly attacking Lee.

While it is the first time a government figure, it also “possibly the first time a Singapore citizen is strongly fighting back against Lee’s lawsuit with the help of social media,” said a Singaporean source who declined to be named. “Roy offered to pay S$5,000, which Prime Minister Lee rejected as derisory. Now Ngerng has raised S$70,000 or more to pay off his libel lawsuit from ordinary Singaporeans using social media. This would never have happened in Singapore in the old days.”

Many international news outlets including the International Herald Tribune, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, the now-defunct Far Eastern Economic Review and AsiaWeek, Time Magazine and others have been sued successfully by the family of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father, Lee Kuan Yew. As it has become clearer that Singapore’s courts are notoriously determined to back the Lees and the government, news organizations have meekly knuckled under, paid the fines and refrained from any critical reporting on the country. Full story...

Related posts:
  1. Singapore: Blogger removes posts under threat from prime minister...
  2. Singapore: Blogger targeted by prime minister...
  3. World's highest paid prime minister demands that blogger pays his legal fees...
  4. Singapore: Independent media making a mark despite restrictions...
  5. Singapore: Escalating restrictions on Internet expression...
  6. The exotic world of Singapore journalism...
  7. Singapore struggles to control cyberspace...

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