Singapore Democrats

Good riposte.

I guess the SPF finally decided it is more cost efficient to install cameras than send undercover police.

Remember, citizens:

War is Peace.
Freedom is Slavery.
Ignorance is Strength

1984 I suppose. where's George Orwell?

One step forward, one step back, cancelling all seemingly intended results!

After all the studies presumably made and processes undergone (expensive, considering inflated salaries of ministers and high-up civil servants, etc.) in order to decide to "loosen up control and allow more freedom" and cancel the requirement for police permit to speak at "speakers corner", they now install cameras there.

They must know that with our deliberately cultivated climate of fear ("if I were not feared, then I wouldn't mean anything"), any effect of that loosening up will be more than offset by the cameras.

Far less fearsome to have your application, with IC, etc., with the police than to have your whole appearance and speech on tape with them!

It defeats the purpose of having free speech,by having survillance camera.It will deter people from attending any protest in HLP.Another reason by installing the camera, the govt can monitor who are the people who will be attending any protest come APEC .What a shame,lousy govt.

Let's not be deluded by PAP propaganda and come to accept subconsciously that there is freedom in Singapore and the place to express it without fear is Hong Lim Park.

The move by police to install CCTV cameras at Speakers’ Corner is clearly aimed at instilling fear in those planning to go there.

As long as there is this fear, there can never be freedom. When there is no freedom, there is no democracy.

Let's not be fooled by the autocratic PAP that there is what is called Singapore-style democracy. It's just a big hogwash.

There's no such thing as Western, Eastern, African or Latin American democracy. Democracy is universal and for us to exercise our democratic rights, first we must have freedom.

Is there freedom for Singaporeans?

The only way to beat the clowns at their game is to not be intimidated by the presence of the cameras. If no one is deterred from attending events at the Speakers' Corner, the cameras will be like toothless tigers morphing soon into white elephants:)

I don't like to appear in front of cameras, but if my conscience is clear, I won't feel discomfort if my pictures are captured.

The same goes here, especially to statements such as, "it defeats the purpose of having free speech."

If anyone has not reservation about exercising his free speech, then there should be not concerns about having cameras around. We need people who say things that he can back up, and not pretentiously.

I'll not attempt to draw a comparison between this and 1984. But thanks to many organisations around the world (including political parties such as SDP), 1984 did not come true.

I suppose having a camera installed permanently does save some police manpower should surveillance be necessary. The police has a right to employ media technology as much as anyone else, no?

BTW, the people setting up the camera are obviously contractors. Why interfere with their work and ask redundant question such, "o what are you guys doing?" when it is obvious what they are doing.

The police seems to have wrong priorities. Those CCTVs could have been installed at Whitley Road detention centre in order to avoid another embarrassing security lapse.

[quote=BryanT]The police has a right to employ media technology as much as anyone else, no?

BTW, the people setting up the camera are obviously contractors. Why interfere with their work and ask redundant question such, "o what are you guys doing?" when it is obvious what they are doing.[/quote]

So why has the law been recently amended to disallow the public from video recording 'illegal activities' including protests?

And why is it a redundant question? How can anyone be sure they are simply putting up a camera or doing something else to a camera that was already in place?

It is the public for whom Speakers Corner has been allocated, and it is public money that is being used to put up the camera as well, so why do the public not have a right to know what exactly is being done?

Perhaps the next time you should also ask the police why they ask questions such as "What are you doing?" to protesters.

Minister Wong Kan Seng said Speakers' Corner will not come under police surveillance.

He told parliament that there won't be any recording or filming of activities by the police. He said the police have better things to do than to monitor events at the Corner.

Wong KS has forgotten what he said,so he may say, in order to protect the citizens from pick pocket and theft, during the event in HLP, Wong put up the cctv to help nab the thief,so he is doing us a favour, thank you Mr Wong.Very smart talented minister, we can't find the replacement.

Interesting fact, if it is true.

Has there been a new law been to disallow the public from video recording 'illegal activities' including protests?

I didn't hear/read about it. You have further info?

See la...wat happen...too "radical"...Ministers who are paid millions cannot stomach individuals who are just earning thousands speaking out against them...

I doubt that WKS would make an undertaking that "Speakers' Corner will not come under police surveillance."

It's like saying the police can never go near the place, with or without cameras.

[quote=BryanT]Interesting fact, if it is true.

Has there been a new law been to disallow the public from video recording 'illegal activities' including protests?

I didn't hear/read about it. You have further info?[/quote]

Yes it is part of the new Public Order Act: [url]http://www.sgpolitics.net/?p=2672[/url]

A simple google would have revealed the following:

When asked by NCMP J B Jeyaretnam in parliament in April 2000 whether Speakers’ Corner would come under police surveillance, Minister Wong replied by saying that the ISD “has a lot of better things to do”
than monitor the movements of the speakers.

He said that “the police will adopt a minimalist hands-off approach towards the Speakers’ Corner“.

1984 on the calendar had come and gone. But the Orwellian 1984's Big Brother is growing bigger by the day. In Singapore "doublethink","thoughtcrime",and "unperson" are terms very real in our lives.

Re: [color=red]"I don't like to appear in front of cameras, but if my conscience is clear, I won't feel discomfort if my pictures are captured...The same goes here, especially to statements such as, "it defeats the purpose of having free speech."...If anyone has not reservation about exercising his free speech, then there should be not concerns about having cameras around. We need people who say things that he can back up, and not pretentiously."[/color]

You know that all that is a load of crock, don't you? On the surface, what you say may appear to be reasonable, but it doesn't apply in the case of any administration, like Singapore's, that only has the utmost of contempt for constitutionalism and the rule of law. That alone invalidates your comments.

Allow me to rudely wake you up from your dreams.

Extrapolating from the logic you expound, which as I said does not apply to Singapore, [b]if your consience is clear and you can sunstantiate your statements with evidence[/b] - and I don't even know how one can do that with [i]opinion[/i] formed on the basis of evidence - [b]then you should not fear being caught on camera nor running into trouble with the law.[/b] (I use "running into trouble with law" as distinct from "committing an offence or a crime" because there are numerous laws, even those to do with free speech/expression, that criminalize acts that are not crimes.)

The logical conclusion to draw then is, if you run into trouble with the law then it is because your conscience was not clear or you were unable to substantiate your statements.

In other words, no individual, especially reformist politicians have ever run into trouble with the law because their statements were:

1. not in perfect alligment with the PAP's; and/or,

2. threatened to expose the PAP's long string of wrongdoings; and/or,

3. threatened PAP's iron grip on power.

Assuming that you are well read and from from diverse sources which I suspect is an erroneous assumption to make, do you in all honesty believe your own statements to represent the reality in Singapore?

Take a good look at yourself: in just about every comment that you have posted, you parrot the PAP's standard party line. What that tells me is that the pressure on all Singaporeans - like yourself - to make and write only statements that are perfectly congruent with the PAP's is so great and the fear of being different from the PAP is so profound, that you can no longer critically examine any article that you read; your coping mechanism is to be the parrot that the PAP wants all Singaporeans to be.

This matter is not about clear conscience or the substatiation of statements.

Do speaker corners in other countries have CCTVs?
Are these standard equipment?