The New Democrat is
back!
Tuesday, 22 September 2009
Singapore Democrats
After a three-year break, the SDP's The New Democrat
is back in business. Publication was stopped when Mr Lee Kuan
Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, sued the party and
its executive members for defamation over an article we
published.
But the Singapore Democrats are proud to announce that normal
services have been resumed. Party members visited several
hawker centres downtown as well as at HDB estates to sell the
newspaper, and sales have been encouraging.
In 2006, the Lees said that a story we wrote about the
National Kidney Foundation (NKF) scandal were defamatory of them
and the Government. As a result they sued.
The case was awarded to them without a
trial. The courts only allowed the defendants to argue over the
amount of damages we had to pay to the plaintiffs. Eventually, High
Court Judge Belinda Ang awarded a total of $610,000.
During the hearing to assess the amount of damages, Dr Chee Soon
Juan and Ms Chee Siok Chin took on the Lees during
cross-examination. The plaintiffs made an unprecedented application
for their cross-examination to be limited to two hours. Judge Ang
granted it.
Even then, the Lees refused to answer many questions put to them.
In the end the SDP leaders were cited and jailed for contempt of
court. (Listen to Dr Chee's cross-examination of Mr Lee Kuan Yew
here.)
The Lees also sued the printer who was made to promise, as a
condition for not paying damages, not to print future issues of
The New Democrat. As a result we had to discontinue
publishing the newspaper.
Until now, that is. For a time, we concentrated on building up the
party through this website. Now with the expansion of our
operations and resources, we are able to begin our publication
again and to resume sales.
Party members and supporters will fan out across the island to sell
the new-look, tabloid-sized newspaper which contains four
languages.
The exercise will help us reach out to the general public and is
part of our campaign activities in preparation for the next general
elections. It will also help the party raise funds.
Singaporeans will see that the presence of the Singapore Democrats
is not limited to the Internet. While we have been at the forefront
of using the new media to reach out to Singaporeans, the sale of
the newspaper will help us establish a presence in the general
public offline.
The current issue looks at the billions of dollars lost by GIC and
Temasek as well as other bread-and-butter issues such as the
witholding of our CPF savings and the high cost of living in
Singapore.
In order to maximise sales and to spread our message more
effectively, we
need volunteers. We need all the help we can
get.
So please contact us at [email protected] This
e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need
JavaScript enabled to view it and let's start getting the
SDP's word out.
http://www.yoursdp.org/index.php/news/singapore/2764-the-new-democrat-is-back