The Rhetoric
“There is no policy too sensitive to question, and no subject so taboo that you cannot even mention it.”
– DPM Lee Hsien Loong, Straits Times, 17 Jan 2000“Whether Singaporeans fully agree with the Government’s point of view is less critical than whether people are following the issues at all.”
– Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the Singapore 21 Conference, July 2001“There will be no sacred cows…there will have to be a systematic willingness to go through all policies and programmes we’re about to embark on.”
– Dr Vivian Balakrishnan on Remaking Singapore, Straits Times Feb 15 2002The Reality
“The police will be commencing investigation since a contravention of the Speakers’ Corner conditions had been committed.”
– Singapore Police Force statement on Dr Chee Soon Juan for criticising the government’s banning of four Muslim schoolgirls from school for wearing headscarves, February 2002