Dear fellow Singaporeans and friends,
The Singapore Government is bent on decapitating the efforts of democracy advocates in Singapore.
In November last year, High Court Judge V K Rajah had dismissed the Originating Motion taken out by Ms Monica Kumar, Mr Yap Keng Ho and I in which we asked the court to declare that the police and Minister for Home Affairs had overstept their powers by dispersing four peaceful protesters.
The judge dismissed the case with costs against us which amounted to $23,745. Because of our inability pay the AG Chambers has initiated proceedings to make us bankrupts. To add insult to injury, each of us has to pay $1,200 for the bankruptcy application.
In addition to the argument that we should not have been made to bear the costs in the first place, I told the public prosecutor at my bankruptcy hearing on 24 November, that we could not afford to pay the first $800 they were asking for. The new deadline for us to pay this first installment is 11 December 2006 [correction].
The intention is to deter future legal challenges against unlawful and unconstitutional actions of the Government.
This is not right. The costs incurred from legitimate court challenges, like the one we took out to protect the constitutional rights of the people to peaceful protest, should be borne by the State and not private citizens.
If the Courts do not protect the rights of the individual citizen, who does it protect?
Be that as it may, we need to continue to speak out and continue our campaign for democracy in this country of ours. This fight should be the fight of all Singaporeans, not just Ms Kumar’s, Mr Yap’s or mine.
As such I am reaching out to you again to ask you to contribute to the legal defence fund that I have set up a few months ago.
To those of you who contributed the last round, we say a big thank you. The funds helped tremendously in defraying the legal costs of making applications in the various cases that my associates and I have been involved in.
If you feel that these are matters important for you and for Singapore, please contribute so that we can continue our struggle against the Lees and the PAP.
May our hopes for democracy in Singapore materialize soon.
Thank you.
Sincerely yours,
Chee Siok Chin
The account details are given below. If you go down to the bank and make the deposit in cash, you need not reveal your identity.
Account Name: Chee Siok Chin
Account No: 033-50592-2
Bank Name: POSBank
For those overseas,
Account Name: Chee Siok Chin
Account No: 033-50592-2
Bank Name: POSBank (A subsidiary of DBS Bank)
Bank address: DBS Building, No. 6 Shenton Way, Tower 2, Singapore 068809
Swift code: DBSSSGSG