publichouse.sg

With 2 weeks to the second protest at Speakers’ Corner against the population White Paper, the organisers of the event have been asked to apply for a police permit.

The “For A Better Singapore” event on 1st May is a follow-up to the one on 16 February which saw some 5,000 people turn up in support.

On 18 April, the National Parks Board, or Nparks, informed Mr Gilbert Goh of transitioning.org, the organisers, that he has to comply with one of the rules of use for Speakers’ Corner for the 1st May event, namely:

“A Police Permit must be obtained if permanent residents of Singapore are speaking or organising a demonstration, performance or exhibition, and/or if foreigners are speaking or participating in or organising activities at Speakers’ Corner, Hong Lim Park.”

Ms Norzehan Ahmad, Section Head at Nparks, had first called Mr Goh on his phone to advise him to apply for a permit, Mr Goh tells publichouse.sg. Later, in an email, she explained that “under the terms and conditions of approval, a Police Permit must be obtained if foreigners are speaking or participating in the activity organised by you at Speakers’ Corner, Hong Lim Park.”

In light of the recent judgement on the issue of Section 377A by our courts, the following article by NUS professor Michael Hor on the topic is worth re-reading. The article was first published on The Online Citizen here in 2007.

By Michael Hor

Curiously, the Penal Code (Amendment) Bill of 2007, proclaimed as the result of only the second comprehensive review of Singapore’s 136 year old criminal code, is likely to be remembered more for what it did not do than for what it did.

To be sure, there is much reform in the Bill, and much that is uncontroversially needed. Many of the changes are technical in nature and would require some acquaintance with the intricacies of criminal law to appreciate.

Not so the issue of whether consensual gay sexual activity between adults ought to continue to be criminalized. When the proposed amendments were unveiled in November last year, few other matters in the document so dominated public discourse. Yet after many months, much feedback and careful deliberation, nothing has changed.

The now famous, or infamous, section 377A which prohibits “gross indecency” between men, is to be preserved. The press release in conjunction with the introduction of the Bill contains no more than two cryptic sentences explaining why this position was finally taken.

The following is a note first published on Ms De Rozario's Facebook page. We thank her for allowing us to re-publish it here.

By Tania De Rozario

"...it is not that the courts do not have any role to play in defining moral issues when such issues are at stake. However, the courts’ power to intervene can only be exercised with established principles. The issue in the present case no doubt is challenging and important, but it is not one which, in my view, justifies heavy-handed judicial intervention ahead of democratic change." - Singapore High Court Justice Quentin Loh.

***

When Mathew Shepard was murdered in Wyoming in 1998, I was 17. I got the news from a close friend who had recently relocated to the US to pursue her education. She was in the process of coming out and wept over the phone, after having attended a candlelight vigil her school had held.

The crime affected me deeply. Shepard, 21, was killed because he was gay. He was driven to a deserted field by two men, tied to a fence, and beaten unconscious with a handgun. When he was spotted the next day by a passerby, he was still unconscious - so badly beaten that he was initially mistaken for a scarecrow. His injuries were too serious to be operated on. He died in hospital.

The following is a letter by Mr Vincent Law was sent to the TODAY newspaper, which declined to publish it. The letter was also sent to the Straits Times.

Last week, AG Steven Cheong launched an initiative to help prosecutors, noting that the public is now more willing to scrutinise prosecutorial decisions and issued a timely reminder that prosecutors should exercise greater care and consideration in making those decisions as they “have the potential to deeply affect an accused person’s life, and in particular his individual rights and liberties” to avoid “unmeritorious prosecutions and consequently undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system.”

While welcomed, it is worth considering why the general public is now more vocal and willing to express disagreement or dissatisfaction with some of those decisions.

A case in point is the recent judgement on the four ex-SMRT drivers from China who "received jail terms of between six and seven weeks for instigating an illegal strike last November that caused inconvenience to the public."