The crux of the matter over the incident that occured on 13 October 2004 when Dr Chee Soon Juan went to file his affidavit at the Supreme Court has been completely censored by the Straits Times.
Dr Chee had complained about the improper behaviour of the Registrar when his affidavit was taken from him at the Registry’s counter and handed to the Registrar for “checking”. The staff at the Registry was primed and instructed beforehand what to do when Dr Chee showed up to file his affidavit.
This process is highly irregular, prompting Dr Chee to write to the Registrar on two occasions (see Dr Chee’s letter to the Registrar on this website) to seek answers to the following questions:
One, why did the procedure change all of a sudden for this occasion when on previous occasions he had no problem filing his affidavits?
Two, why the heightened alert to Dr Chee’s filing of his affidavit among the Registry’s staff?
Three, why was Dr Chee’s affidavit taken away from him to the Registrar? Is this normal practice?
Four, does the Registrar normally check the format of affidavits?
The Registrar normally prompt in its repsonses has still not replied to Dr Chee’s questions.
But the Straits Times has completely blacked out this information and refuses to tell Singaporeans what really happened. It gave prominence to the Registrar’s letter, publishing its contents in detail while completely ignoring Dr Chee’s.
This is not the first time that such shameful censorship has taken place nor should anyone be surprised. The fact remains, however, that Singaporeans continue to be misled by the deceit coming out from our “newsrooms”.
One point to note from this blatant censorhip is that the media sees the news as damaging to the PAP and has to resort to hardcore blacking out of information. In less serious matters it usually just resorts to misrepresentation.
It is evident that Dr Chee is not only fighting Mr Lee Kuan Yew and the PAP but also the Registrar and the media in Singapore.