SINGAPORE (AFP) - - Singaporeans are free to read whatever they
want, the influential founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew said of
his country, which ranks near the bottom on a watchdog's index of
press freedom.
Lee was referring to the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders'
(RSF) annual ranking for 2006, which placed the city-state at 146
out of 168 nations, and lower than Zimbabwe at 140.
RSF cited "new legal action by the government against foreign
media" for Singapore's slipping six places in the rankings.
"There's nothing that you'd want to read which you cannot read in
Singapore," said Lee, who holds the influential title of minister
mentor in the cabinet of his son.
"You can buy our newspapers and see whether we read like
Zimbabwe..." he 1said Sunday night in a keynote address to the
International Bar Association annual conference, which has
attracted thousands of lawyers and jurists from around the
world.
Lee said Singaporeans have wide access to information.
"Everybody's on the Internet. Everybody's got broadband. They've
got cable television, access to all the information. You can blog.
You can do anything you like," he said in the speech which drew
frequent applause.
"But we do not allow certain subjects to be made bones of
contention."
Lee said issues of race, language and religion had to be handled
sensitively. Singapore is majority ethnic Chinese but with
significant Malay and Indian minorities.
"A multi-racial, multi-religious society is always prone to
conflicts," Lee said.
The city-state has bitter memories of past racial incidents in its
early years and clamps down hard on anyone inciting communal
tensions.
RSF has said Singapore's low ranking stems from "the complete
absence" of independent print and broadcast media, the opposition's
lack of access to those media, and other factors.
Last year Singapore banned distribution of the Hong Kong-based Far
Eastern Economic Review magazine, saying it had failed to comply
with media regulations.
Lee and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, are suing the
magazine's editor and Hong Kong-based Review Publishing, its
owners, alleging defamation in an article last year based on an
interview with pro-democracy activist Chee Soon Juan.
"We are often accused of suing people for defamation," Lee told his
audience.
But he said Singapore was built on the rule of law and did not
tolerate corruption, in contrast to the surrounding region where
"money politics" was a way of life.
This means defamation action may be taken against those who impute
dishonesty to government officials, in order to clear any doubts,
he said.
"As a result, people in Singapore do not equate their political
leaders with second-hand car salesmen," Lee said.