Brown-clad 30 show silent support for Mr Brown
The Straits Times
July 9, 2006, 9.06 pm (Singapore time)
By Aaron Low
THE police are looking into a show of support for blogger Mr Brown
by about 30 people who arrived at City Hall MRT station wearing
brown.
Those interviewed said they had come in response to an SMS message
that had circulated over the weekend.
The cellphone short message had asked people to wear brown and head
for City Hall station at 2pm Sunday, to protest against the
'Government-imposed blackout' on the blogger's weekly column in the
free newspaper Today.
At about 2pm, about 30 people gathered, talking and laughing in
groups just outside the train station.
They were mostly people in their 20s and 30s, and had mostly come
alone. Also present was a Canadian family of three, a mother and
her two teenage daughters.
Artist Zai Kuning, 43, came in a brown T-shirt which said 'I am fed
up with progress' on the back.
That was referring to the headline of Mr Brown's June 30 article,
'Singaporeans are fed, up with progress' that drew criticism from
the Government.
'I don't really read Mr Brown's online postings nor his columns but
I thought I wanted to show my support for him because what happened
was unfair to him,' said Mr Zai.
Mr Brown is the moniker of fulltime writer and blogger Lee Kin Mun,
36. In a letter published in Today on 3 July, the Government
criticised his last piece on the high cost of living here.
The newspaper then suspended the column. Mr Lee said through his
friend Edmund Tan that he knew about the SMS asking people to go to
City Hall, but was not the one who initiated it.
'We are touched by the gesture and we hope that nobody gets into
trouble because of us,' said Mr Tan, who helps Mr Lee run his
website.
The police officers present at City Hall did not tell the gathering
to disperse. By 2.20pm people began wandering off, and by 2.40pm it
was over.
It is illegal to conduct a public protest in Singapore without a
license, under the Public Entertainments Act.
The police confirmed that nobody was arrested. 'The police is aware
of the incident and we are looking into it,' a spokesman
said.
