By Linh Tat
FREMONT — Immigration attorney Gopalan Nair
returned to the Bay Area this week after six months in Singapore,
where he was imprisoned for two months after being convicted of
sedition.
Nair, a San Jose resident who practices law in Fremont — in an
office above The Argus — maintained his innocence Friday and
continued to lash out at the Singaporean government as being
corrupt.
The 58-year-old had traveled to his homeland in May to observe
the defamation trial of some opposition political leaders.
Afterward, he criticized the High Court judge, Belinda Ang, as a
"stooge" for the country's leader, Lee Kuan Yew. She was
"prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being
nothing more than an employee of Lee Kuan Yew and his son and
carrying out their orders," he wrote in a May 29 blog entry.
Friday, he pulled out his Webster's dictionary to explain what
he meant by prostitute: "a person ... who sells his or her services
for low or unworthy purposes."
Nair said he did not mean the judge engaged in sexual
activities, but that she had misused her powers.
"Those words were strong, no doubt. But ... those words were
necessary because this judge was ... shamelessly abusing her
authority," he said.
"She was not carrying out her duties in a judicial manner."
In the same blog entry, Nair seemingly challenged the court by
providing his name and the name and address of the hotel at which
he was
staying, stating that, "It will be interesting to see if ... Lee
Kuan Yew and son, who strut around ... bullying everyone who so
much as criticized (them), will sue me now for calling him nothing
more than a small time street bully."
Nair was arrested at the hotel May 31 and spent several days in
solitary confinement, during which time police officers would
interrogate him at odd hours of the night to try to get him to
confess to e-mailing the judge with threatening letters, he said.
He has continued to deny that accusation.
The immigration attorney posted bail about a week after his
arrest, and a trial date was set for September. But Nair said
authorities confiscated his passport, forcing him to remain in the
area.
Homeless, Nair at one point slept in a warehouse and developed a
respiratory problem that landed him in a hospital for five days, he
said.
On July 4, while awaiting trial, Nair was arrested again — this
time for disorderly conduct and insulting an officer. He denied
both claims, saying he was walking alone on the street when five
plainclothes officers attacked him. Nevertheless, Nair was found
guilty and fined $3,000.
As for the sedition charge, despite his insistence that he had
used the term "prostituting" correctly and that he never sent
threatening e-mails to the judge, Nair was sentenced in September
to three months in jail. After serving two months, he was released
Nov. 20 for good behavior.
A week before his release, Nair said authorities accused him
being contemptuous in court during the trial regarding his July 4
arrest. Because he did not want to jeopardize his chances of being
released, Nair said he pleaded guilty and agreed never to criticize
the government on his blog again. He also agreed to remove
controversial entries he had posted Sept. 1 and 6.
But on Friday, he said he plans to repost the two previous
entries and that he will continue to write critical pieces of the
government, realizing he'll never be able to step foot in Singapore
again.
Nair, who lived a total of 35 years in Singapore, twice ran for
Parliament as a member of the Workers Party, but lost his bids for
office. He immigrated to the United States in 1991, where he was
granted political asylum and became a U.S. citizen in 2005.
After leaving Singapore this week, he flew into San Francisco
airport Wednesday, and spent his first two nights back in the
United States at the Islander Motel in Fremont because power and
water lines had been turned off at his San Jose home. Although
electricity had not been restored to his home by Friday evening,
Nair planned to return home.
He owes about six months in mortgage payments for his house,
back rent for his law office, plus he needs to pay off his credit
cards, including half a year's worth of interest. While waiting for
his trial to begin in Singapore, Nair took out cash advances on his
credit card to pay for living expenses.
Factoring in lost wages, court fees and the interests on debts
he owes, Nair estimated that the entire ordeal has set him back
$100,000 — and he believes he is in danger of losing his house.
"I paid a price, but the Singaporean government has paid a
bigger price," he said, adding that his case has shed more light on
what he called a tyrannical government.
"Before this incident, I was just Gopalan Nair. Who? ... But
after this case, (Singaporean leaders) have made me more popular.
They made my blog popular. They've given publicity to my cause," he
said.
http://www.insidebayarea.com/argus/
