{"id":143,"date":"2008-06-06T14:39:07","date_gmt":"2008-06-06T18:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2008\/06\/06\/blogger-jailed-in-singapore-for-dissen"},"modified":"2008-06-06T14:39:07","modified_gmt":"2008-06-06T18:39:07","slug":"blogger-jailed-in-singapore-for-dissent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/2008\/06\/06\/blogger-jailed-in-singapore-for-dissent\/","title":{"rendered":"Blogger Jailed in Singapore for Dissent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that an \u2018Asian Tiger\u2019 is <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.foreignpolicy.com\/node\/8962\">continuing its policies of censorship<\/a> and limiting freedom of expression in the blogosphere.  Gopalan Nair, a Singaporean-American lawyer whose blog is <a href=\"http:\/\/singaporedissident.blogspot.com\/\">Singapore Dissident<\/a>, was arrested on May 31st after criticizing the Supreme Court\u2019s handling of a defamation suit.  Nair was held in custody until Wednesday June 4th, when he was released on 2,400 euros bail.  Reporters Without Borders has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rsf.org\/article.php3?id_article=27324\">condemned<\/a> the arrest and subsequent jailing, stating: <\/p>\n<blockquote><p>We urge the authorities to drop charges against Gopalan Nair who has only exercised his right of freedom of expression.  This charge is improper and will add to the intimidation of bloggers and Internet users who express themselves about Singapore\u2019s political life. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This week\u2019s events call into question Singapore\u2019s commitment to a democratic system.  The country maintains a highly competitive market economy and one of the most <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/apps\/news?pid=20601080&amp;sid=aS1mjWEgmEvw&amp;refer=asia\">clean and transparent governments<\/a> in Asia.  But if Singapore\u2019s People\u2019s Action Party continues its suppression of dissent, the nation may also continue to be labeled a \u201chybrid\u201d regime or \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.foreignaffairs.org\/19971101faessay3809\/fareed-zakaria\/the-rise-of-illiberal-democracy.html\">illiberal<\/a>\u201d democracy well into the future. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It appears that an \u2018Asian Tiger\u2019 is continuing its policies of censorship and limiting freedom of expression in the blogosphere. Gopalan Nair, a Singaporean-American lawyer whose blog is Singapore Dissident, was arrested on May 31st after criticizing the Supreme Court\u2019s handling of a defamation suit. Nair was held in custody until Wednesday June 4th, when [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1819,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2097],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-states"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1819"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/idblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}