One correspondent ponders why his working visa was not renewed
by the city-state.
Unfriendly reporters are jailed, assaulted or assassinated by
the governments of Burma, Iran and Sri Lanka. Singapore, with
pretensions to being a global "media hub", prefers tools of
repression that are more subtle, yet have the same chilling effect
on free speech. After a year as an accredited correspondent in the
southeast Asian city-state, I was unexpectedly told last month that
my employment visa would not be renewed.
The government refused to disclose its reasons despite repeated
requests and an appeal from the British High Commission. The
Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), a New York-based
press freedom group, condemned the decision, saying that it "shows
the Singapore
government's intolerance of independent and critical reporting".
CPJ added that I was merely "the latest on a long list of foreign
journalists who have been targeted by the government for their news
coverage".
Although I reported on some sensitive issues such as rising
crime, the ageing population and business links with Burma, I did
not break any of the taboos that normally lead to a government
reprisal – namely criticising Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's founding
father, or his son, the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong. International
publications that dare to hold Singapore's ruling caste to account
tend to find themselves on the wrong side of a costly libel suit.
In recent years, the Economist, the International Herald Tribune,
the Wall Street Journal and, most recently, the soon-to-close Far
Eastern Economic Review have all been forced to pay out hundreds of
thousands of pounds in damages to the Lee family.
While the international press is silenced through the courts,
Singaporean journalists are cowed by the government's ownership of
key stakes in all the country's daily newspapers and news
broadcasters. The insidious practice of self-censorship is
all-pervasive. One senior editor at a major international newspaper
in Asia admitted that he line-edits every single story about
Singapore for fear of upsetting the powers-that-be.
A veteran foreign correspondent in Singapore insisted that it
was possible to criticise the government "if one takes a subtle
rather than confrontational approach and focuses on policy issues
rather than personalities". But, fearful of jeopardising his
employment visa, he was not prepared to speak on the record.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/nov/30/singapore-press-freedom