SINGAPORE, Aug 4 — Harvard academic Li Shengwu, the son of Lee Hsien Yang, has said that it was not his intention to “attack the Singapore judiciary or to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice”, weeks after his Facebook post criticising the Republic’s court system drew a response from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).
“Any criticism I made is of the Singapore government’s litigious nature, and its use of legal rules and actions to stifle the free press,” Li wrote in a Facebook post this morning, adding that he had received a “threatening letter” from the AGC.
He added that the AGC’s letter called his Facebook post “an attack on the Singapore judiciary and is in contempt of court”.
“It is not,” the academic wrote.
On July 15, Li posted a link to a Wall Street Journal article on the 38 Oxley Road dispute involving his father, aunt, Dr Lee Wei Ling, and uncle, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
He described the article as a “good” summary, and likened the public disagreements over his late grandfather’s house to a “political crisis”.
In the same post, Li added a second link to a New York Times commentary alleging media censorship in Singapore, published on April 3, 2010, and wrote: “Keep in mind, of course, that the Singapore Government is very litigious and has a pliant court system. This constrains what the international media can usually report.”
The AGC said then that it was “aware of the post and is looking into the matter”.
It has not commented on the issue since, and has not released the letter that Li said he had received.
In his latest Facebook post this morning, Li said he had amended his July 15 Facebook post to clarify what he meant to say, and “to avoid any misunderstanding of my original private post”.
He did not change the setting of that earlier post to be publicly viewable. Li said someone had taken an “unauthorised screenshot” of that initial private post and published it online without his permission.
He further explained his comments in that July 15 post, adding: “If my private post is read in context, it is evident that I did not attack the Singapore judiciary.
“In the context of sharing the summary by the Wall Street Journal, I intended to convey that the international media were restricted in their ability to report on the recent crisis, due to the litigious nature of the Singapore government, and the different legal rules with respect to press freedom in Singapore as compared to countries such as the United States.
“There is also flexibility in Singapore’s defamation laws — they just have different boundaries from the defamation laws in other jurisdictions.
“The government makes use of these legal rules to restrict unfavourable reporting.” — TODAY
