I’ve made this point several times before, but in the wake of Prime Minister Lee Hsieng Loong suing blogger Roy Ngerng for defamation and demanding damages, the time has come again to argue that defamation suits are not the response.<\/p>\n
This post is not about the merits of Ngerng’s\u00a0argument.\u00a0He alleged that Lee stole monies from the Central Provident Fund, by comparing how\u00a0CPF funds are\u00a0handled with the current City Harvest scandal. Having missed the original article before Ngerng took it down, I won’t comment on it.\u00a0But I will say that from a policy perspective, defamation suits benefit no one.<\/p>\n
The Question Remains<\/strong><\/p>\n Whether Ngerng actually defamed Lee is ancillary to the issue. Many Singaporean bloggers, such as Leong Sze Hian and gdy2shoez of Everything Also Complain, are raising questions about CPF mechanisms and investments. Ngerng’s post is simple one of a long line of similar posts — the only difference being that Lee’s lawyer saw cause to lay down a defamation suit.<\/p>\n Lee may feel his reputation had been hurt. A defamation suit, with a demand for damages, is\u00a0the\u00a0government’s traditional means of addressing this. However, even\u00a0if the offending speech could be erased and the speaker made to pay damages, the issues remain. No number of defamation suits and no dollar amount can satisfy these questions. If anything, the use of defamation suits makes the state look\u00a0as if it has something to hide, and that it is actually trying to silence\u00a0dissent.<\/p>\n The Face of the State<\/strong><\/p>\n The government, through the Prime Minister, may feel it needs to\u00a0protect its reputation — its ‘face’, so to speak. But people today are less likely to be view defamation suits from authority figures in a positive light. If aimed at a popular blogger like Ngerng,\u00a0the state is courting political backlash by creating\u00a0the impression that it is\u00a0perpetuating a kind of soft tyranny, rolling over dissidents with the\u00a0combined power of law and money.<\/p>\n There are signs of backlash already. Other\u00a0Internet personalities are taking to social media to express their support for Ngerng. Some miscreant(s) vandalised several bus stops in support of Ngerng. I feel\u00a0people are becoming increasingly\u00a0frustrated and angry at a government that seems to have reneged on its promise of a ‘light touch’ on the Internet, and is throwing defamation suits and letters of demand at every possibility. Ngerng is simply the last of a long line of bloggers, from Alex Au to Temasek Review Emeritus, Tan Kin Lian to Vincent Wijeysingha.<\/p>\n The eyes of the people are on the state. How an action is perceived is just as important as its intended effect. The government may pride itself on doing ‘the right thing’ instead of pandering to populist demands, but what is ‘the right thing’ here? Is it choosing to break out the legal hatchetmen? Or rising above concerns of reputation and addressing the root questions?<\/p>\n Earning the People’s Respect<\/strong><\/p>\n The state is not so fragile that a single comment would bring it down. The Prime Minister’s rule is not so tenuous that his authority is threatened by a single blog post. If Singapore were to ever reach that stage, then that Singapore would not be the Singapore founded on the ideals of democracy and meritocracy. But\u00a0the first step to getting to that hypothetical Singapore is to\u00a0suppress political opposition and define the boundaries of speech with every instrument of the law.<\/p>\n