Democracy and the internet in Singapore: The supply of alternative political content during general elections

"When elections were called for in November 2001, the new legislations were put into use and were directed at the Think Centre. In the first instance, the Centre received a fax from the Elections Department at 5 pm on Friday the 19th of October. The fax was an order to remove all materials from their website that could be construed as elections advertising. The fax was received at 5.11pm and the order was to be executed by 11pm the same day, giving the Centre less than six hours to act (Gomez 2002, p. 89). The Centre received a second notice from the Elections Department on the 23rd of October 2001. This time, they wanted the removal of an article entitled “Young Singaporeans, can the PAP safeguard your future” which was written by a youth member of the Singapore Democratic Party. This time the Centre was asked to notify the Elections Department in writing the exact time and date of the article’s removal, failing which the Centre would be prosecuted under the Parliamentary Elections Act (Gomez 2002, p. 92). What is ironic is that these threats were directed at the Centre even though the Centre had written to the Elections Department on 10th of October 2001, asking what contents from the Centre’s website should be removed in order not to infringe the Parliamentary Elections Act. However the Centre obtained no response, but received these two threats of prosecution instead (Gomez 2002, p. 91).

In another online and election-related incident, the police chose to apply the Penal Code against Robert Ho, a retired ex-journalist who posted an allegedly “inflammatory” article on the Singaporeans For Democracy (SFD) website and soc.culture.singapore newsgroup on 19 October 2001. The article posted on both sites was the same but with slightly different headlines: “Break the Law - Like Your PAP leaders” and “Break the Law and get away with it, Like PAP”, respectively. The Straits Times reported that “The document allegedly encouraged electors to enter polling stations without authority on Polling Day”, after the Attorney-General declared that four senior PAP ministers were innocent of breaking any laws that disallowed unauthorised persons waiting and loitering outside polling stations on Polling Day in the previous elections in 1997. Instead, Mr. Ho was arrested for attempting to “incite violence and disobedience to the law which is likely to lead to a breach of the peace” (Gomez 2002, p. 99). He was then forced to undergo psychiatric tests. He was acquitted by the courts on 14 December that viiyear after a courtordered psychiatric evaluation found that he had a “long history of psychiatric illness” (Gomez 2002, pp. 99-104)."