Rapper Subhas Nair found guilty of attempting to promote ill will between races and religions
During his trial, Nair took the stand and explained his intentions behind each online post.
He said he intended to end “brownface” in Singapore with his video. This refers to the practice of a lighter-skinned person applying make-up to imitate the appearance of a person from an ethnicity with darker skin.
Nair also said the term “f***ing it up” referred to a person making a mistake, and did not mean that Chinese people are “f***ed up”.
He added that art may offend some people – especially when it is trying to improve society – and may also make some people feel “uncomfortable”.
On his comments on the Chan Jia Xing case, Nair said he was not trying to create enmity between groups. Rather, he was trying to convey a message “about the state of journalism in our country”, about “media bias and how certain people and cases were reported”, he said.
JUDGE’S FINDINGS
District Judge Shaiffuddin Saruwan on Tuesday rejected Nair’s explanations as to his “actual intention and knowledge” behind his posts.
“I find that they are not consistent with the words used in the posts. In one or two instances, they are also not supported or corroborated by what he stated in his police statement. Some are even plainly in direct contradiction with the words he used in the posts,” said the judge.
He said Nair’s words in his posts should be given their “natural and ordinary meaning”.
He also found Nair’s testimony “not cogent”, and did not find that he was a credible witness.
The judge said it was clear that Nair’s words suggested that some communities are targeted unfairly while others get preferential treatment.
As for the YouTube video, the lyrics were “clearly offensive and insulting” and the video was targeted at the Chinese community in general, a fact that Nair himself admitted.
Nair also acknowledged that he knew the Chinese community would find it offensive.
The judge said the “irresistible inference to be drawn” was that Nair knowingly attempted to promote feelings of ill will among racial and religious groups.
He convicted the rapper of all four charges.
Nair was accompanied by a handful of supporters in court on Tuesday, including his sister.
His lawyer successfully applied for him to leave the country for Bali in August, to attend a friend’s wedding and for leisure.
The judge granted the application after imposing some bail conditions, and directing that Nair provide his full travel itinerary to the investigating officer as well as surrender his passport to the IO within 48 hours of his return.
Sentencing arguments will be heard at a later date.
The penalties for attempting to promote feelings of ill will between racial or religious groups are a jail term of up to three years, a fine or both.
Tan Chuan-Jin resigns as president of Singapore National Olympic Council after affair
SINGAPORE: Former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin has stepped down from his role as the president of the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC). The council said in a statement on Tuesday (Jul 18) that it has accepted Mr Tan’s resignation and thanked him for his years of service and contributions. MrContinue Reading
Tan Chuan-Jin resigns from various organisations, including Singapore National Olympic Council
SINGAPORE: Former Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin has resigned from his roles in various organisations following news of his extramarital affair with Member of Parliament Cheng Li Hui.
He has stepped down as president of the Singapore National Olympic Council (SNOC) and as an adviser to the National Council of Social Service (NCSS). He has also left his role as patron of the Centre for Fathering.
SNOC said in a statement on Tuesday (Jul 18) that it has accepted Mr Tan’s resignation and thanked him for his years of service and contributions.
Mr Tan has been president of SNOC since 2014 and was re-elected for a third term in September last year in a unanimous vote. He was slated to serve his latest term from 2022 to 2026.
The organisation’s most senior vice president in office, Mrs Jessie Phua, will be appointed as SNOC’s acting president at the next executive committee meeting.
The SNOC constitution states that if the president resigns, the vice president who is most senior in office shall be appointed as the acting president for the remaining term of the resigned president.
Mr Tan was appointed adviser to NCSS in 2017. In a statement on Tuesday, an NCSS spokesperson said that it is grateful for Mr Tan’s leadership and support over the years, “particularly his passion in promoting volunteerism in the social service sector”.
In 2017, Mr Tan was also appointed deputy chairman of the board of directors at Mandai Park Holdings, which is responsible for the business and strategic development of Wildlife Reserves Singapore. Wildlife Reserves Singapore operates the Singapore Zoo and other attractions.
In response to CNA’s queries about whether Mr Tan has resigned from his position, Mandai Wildlife Group said it has “nothing further to add” to his statement on the matter.
The former Speaker also stepped down from his role as patron of the Centre for Fathering on Monday, the organisation confirmed on Tuesday. It thanked Mr Tan for serving as its patron from January 2018.
Raffles Institution said it was unable to comment on Mr Tan’s resignation from politics. It added: “Mr Tan’s portrait remains on the school wall together with other notable alumni of the school.”
Mr Tan is an alumnus of Raffles Institution, along with other Members of Parliament including Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, Education Minister Chan Chun Sing and Health Minister Ong Ye Kung.
“INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIP”
Mr Tan and Ms Cheng on Monday resigned from parliament and the People’s Action Party (PAP).
The pair had an “inappropriate relationship” with each other and had continued with it despite being told to stop, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said at a press conference.
Mr Lee said he was first alerted to their relationship after the 2020 General Election. The pair were spoken to and counselled, most recently in February, but went on with the affair.
Mr Tan, 54, is married with two children. Ms Cheng, 47, is not married.
Police accused of extortion, caught on video
PUBLISHED : 18 Jul 2023 at 13:51
A police investigation has been launched into an allegation that five policemen in Kalasin province abducted a woman, falsely accused her of drug possession and extorted 50,000 baht from her in exchange for her release.
Pol Maj Gen Phuttiphong Musikul, deputy commander of Provincial Police Region 4, said on Tuesday the incident happened in an area under the jurisdiction of Muang police station in Kalasin, and the station commander has reported it to the regional police office.
The allegation is backed by a video taken surreptitiously with a mobile phone.
All five men in the video were police attached to various police units in Kalasin province. A fact-finding investigation was being launched to look into disciplinary and criminal action against the accused men.
If the allegation was confirmed, they would be punished, Pol Maj Gen Phuttiphong said.
The probe was launched after the woman turned to Khaosan Palanchai Facebook page for help. TV Channel 8 then sent a news team to see her, and the alleged extortion by the police officers was widely reported.
The woman, whose name was withheld, alleged that five men stormed into the resort in Muang district where she was staying alone around 6.20pm on July 4.
The men claimed be members of a police task force in Kalasin. They searched her room but found nothing illegal. They did find 20,000 baht cash in the room. They then took her from the room and asked her to point at some white tissue paper left under a tree in outside the room, but she refused, the woman said.
Those men had wanted to record a video of her pointing at the tissue paper, as evidence.
She was then forcibly taken to their vehicle and they drove around Muang district. On the way, they had tried to persuade her to confess that she owned the tissue paper, which contained illicit drugs. She said that she refused.
The five men demanded 50,000 baht in exchange for her release, the woman said.
She said she was afraid of being falsely charged with drug offences. She contacted her younger brother and borrowed 30,000 baht from him, which she then gave to the men along with the 20,000 baht they had seized from her room.
She had managed to video what happened during the police raid on her room without them noticing.
Pol Lt Gen Yanyong Vejosot, chief of Provincial Police Region 4, ordered Kalasin police chief Pol Maj Gen Suwan Chiewnawinthawat to explain the incident after the video was aired on TV news.
Exabytes encourages businesses to leverage cloud technology for IR4.0 sustainability
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Attendees got practical solutions for optimising supply chains & embracing ESG principles
Southeast Asia’s all-in-one cloud, digital, and e-commerce solutions provider, Exabytes Group, recently organised the Cloud-Powered Industry 4.0 Revolution conference with Amazon Web Service (AWS). The conference aimed to create awareness for businesses to…Continue Reading
Bangkok governorâs son apologises for anti-MFP rant
Sanpiti Sittipunt roasted online for branding ‘woke’ party supporters as ‘bratty teenagers’
The son of Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt has apologised for an online tirade against the Move Forward Party, in which he called its supporters “bratty teenagers”, among other things.
Sanpiti “Sandee” Sittipunt, 23, was himself the target of widespread online abuse on Monday after he posted the Instagram message, which has since been deleted.
He branded the supporters of the coalition-leading party as “bratty teenagers and disobedient children” and criticised the party for lacking feasible economic policies and more.
Mr Sandee, who worked as a Pheu Thai campaign volunteer, wrote his commentary in English. “You had your turn,” he began, referring to Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat’s unsuccessful first bid to be approved as prime minister by parliament. “Let us, Pheu Thai, lead Thailand to the future We delivered on economic priorities for the past 20 years.
“Thailand has the potential to become the 5th Tiger. We cannot achieve it if you keep complaining about social issues and laws. We must focus on the economy and how to bring money to people’s pockets. Move Forward is the party of wokeism and cancel culture.”
Amending section 272 of the constitution to curb the power of the Senate, as Move Forward proposes, will “never happen”, nor will amendments to other controversial laws.
“Pita as PM will never happen. NEVER,” he added.
“Next election, maybe try getting 65% of the vote like 2005 with Thai Rak Thai and I’ll reconsider my stance.
“You don’t have any feasible economic policies. Monopolies and big corporations don’t want you in power. Farmers want policies that cash them cheques, not gender ideology or woke performative bullshit.
“In summary, nobody wants you in charge. Only bratty teenagers and disobedient children.”
The internet predictably exploded, with Move Forward supporters directing pointed and sometimes personal remarks at the overseas-educated son of a prominent political figure. Within hours, Mr Sanpiti was in retreat, publishing an apology on his Facebook page.
“I regret my actions and would like to explain that I was only trying to express my opinions, I do not harbour hatred towards any parties or individuals,” he wrote. “Moving forward I am willing to listen to other people opinion as well as learning from everyone.
“To be clear, I think MFP policies are very practical and transformational, very innovative. I just don’t like the leadership or the people involved as well as the entire protest movement in 2020 .
“I fully own up that I am very privileged and elitist, that I am inexperienced and uneducated about Thai politics or politics. It is inappropriate and ill-advised of me to comment on politics despite my right to free speech. I am not qualified.
“Over the past day, I have read hurtful comments about my physical stature, my intelligence and my background. While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, I admit that this is the consequence of my actions and I have enabled this. We must show empathy and kindness to others.”
Mr Chadchart said on Tuesday that his son regretted having written the diatribe. He said he spoke with his son about the matter and encouraged him to be “constructive” when expressing opinions.
The governor told TV Channel 3 that he did not force his son to issue an apology.
Mr Chadchart was a popular transport minister in the Pheu Thai government of Yingluck Shinawatra. He later left the party in 2019 and ran as an independent for Bangkok governor in 2022, winning one of the biggest victories in the capital’s history.
An excerpt from the post, since deleted, that Sanpiti Sittipunt made on Instagram.
Succession plan: Cambodia PM’s favoured son on path to power
By contrast, his son was raised in luxury and educated abroad, including at the US military academy West Point. But a Western education is no guarantee of a more liberal approach, exiled politician Sam Rainsy, a longstanding foe of the prime minister, told AFP – pointing to Syria’s brutal AssadContinue Reading
Calling Erdoganâs bluff on NATO
Last week, on the eve of NATO’s summit in Vilnius, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan finally ended his opposition to Sweden’s membership. After months of brinkmanship and threats, he realized that his poker hand was relatively weak. Except for Hungary, other NATO states had become exasperated with his theatrics.
Erdogan parlayed his resistance – first to the membership bids of both Finland and Sweden, and later just to Sweden’s – to re-election this spring. Erdogan controls domestic sources of information in Turkey; appearing to strongarm the West is a popular political ploy.
But Erdogan is also interested in playing a larger role in global politics. He has an inflated view of himself and of Turkey; imagines that he can singlehandedly remake the global balance of power; and believes that forcing others to negotiate with him will enhance his credentials.
In rationalizing his opposition, Erdogan accused the Swedes of harboring “terrorists” who sought asylum from his authoritarian regime. The problem is that for Erdogan, every opponent of his government is a terrorist. He has eviscerated the notion of the rule of law in Turkey – from finance and human rights to freedom of the press and day-to-day societal choices.
Without an independent judicial system, it’s impossible to determine whether Turkey’s extradition requests have legal merit. At one point, the Turks even demanded that a sitting member of the Swedish parliament, who happens to be of Iranian-Kurdish origin, be handed over.
Most of Erdogan’s requests were those no democratic country could agree to. Rather than heed his demands, the Swedes agreed only to extradite a drug dealer and tighten rules regarding fundraising for Kurdish groups directly affiliated with counterparts in Turkey.
Erdogan doesn’t understand that Turkey’s position is hypocritical when it comes to requesting the extradition of criminals.
Sweden had made several requests to Ankara to arrest and start extradition procedures for fugitives, drug dealers, and suspected murderers who have sought refuge in Turkey. Turkey refused these entreaties on account that the suspects now were Turkish citizens – having achieved this feat by literally buying their residency status.
Turkey wasn’t always the troublemaker of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Erdogan was influential in the early years of his presidency when he sought to establish a moderate, liberal order at home and improve relations with allies and neighbors alike.
But as he consolidated power he became a populist-authoritarian leader with no tolerance for dissent. Surrounded by sycophants, he has gotten accustomed to getting his way at home, no matter the issue.
His real problem, and the reason he had to end his opposition to Sweden’s NATO membership, is that he’s facing an enormous economic crisis, much of it his own doing. He espouses unorthodox policies that have sent inflation through the roof.
To avoid calamity, Turkey will need vast amounts of financial help, aid with its current-account deficit, direct foreign investment, and improved market access for its manufacturing-sector exports. This is the kind of support only Turkey’s allies can provide.
EU membership gambit
Before consenting to Sweden’s NATO membership, Erdogan tried to turn the tables: He set as a precondition that the European Union agree to reopen accession negotiations of its own with Turkey.
This is a non-starter, and he knows it. But posing the question could prompt the EU to consider deepening its customs agreement with Ankara, a move that would undoubtedly help Turkish exports.
Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO secretary general, did express support for Turkey’s EU accession. Of course, the endorsement is in essence meaningless, given that Stoltenberg isn’t an EU official. Yet Erdogan will still seek to spin this as a concession to Turkish demands.
Erdogan also wants US President Joe Biden’s administration to approve the sale of F-16 fighter jets to Ankara.
The administration, which supports the idea in principle, made it clear that as long as Erdogan blocked Sweden’s NATO bid, the sale wouldn’t fly in the US Congress, where some leaders were already upset at Turkey’s threatening overflights of Greek islands in the Aegean and other abrasive tactics in the region.
The Turkish Air Force needs F-16s because it lost its chance of acquiring more advanced F-35s on account of another case of obstinate Erdogan decision-making: the purchase of Russian S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems.
The president authorized this move despite warnings from Washington and NATO that the systems rendered the F-35 susceptible to Russian espionage and are incompatible with alliance equipment.
The Biden administration managed this crisis exceptionally well; it was patient and kept its powder dry. It probably bemoans the many hours it wasted dealing with this issue when other, more pressing ones got short shrift.
Unfortunately, this is the world of dealing with populist authoritarians; Erdogan isn’t the only one, and he will be back. He indicated that he would submit the Swedish accession legislation to the Turkish parliament in October after the end of the summer recess.
In other words, the Turkish president has plenty of time to try to up the ante, make other demands, or complain that the rest of Turkey’s allies aren’t living up to the deal’s conditions.
The debate over Sweden’s accession to NATO may be over, but Erdogan’s self-serving brinkmanship will only continue.
This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.
Opposition meeting: 26 Indian parties hold talks to take on PM Modi
Congress PartyThe leaders of 26 Indian opposition parties are meeting to firm up their strategy to take on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s party in the general election due next year.
Top opposition leaders including the Congress’s Sonia Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal are participating.
Reports say the group may also pick a leader for the coalition on Tuesday.
This is the second big meeting of the opposition in the run-up to elections.
They are expected to discuss issues such as seat-sharing – how many seats each party would contest – and a common programme for the election in the two-day meeting being held in Bengaluru city (formerly Bangalore) in the southern state of Karnataka.
But taking on the BJP – which won more than 300 seats in the 543-member Lok Sabha (the lower house of India’s parliament) in 2019 – will be a formidable challenge even for a mostly united opposition.
The BJP governs around 15 states (India has 28 states and eight federally administrated territories) either by itself or as part of a coalition. It is India’s richest political party with a declared income of 19.17bn rupees ($233.67m; £178.4m) in 2021-22. And its biggest strength in a national election is the popularity of Mr Modi, who has been able to sway even voters who may have chosen a different party in state polls.
Meanwhile, opposition parties are grappling with their own challenges.
Rahul Gandhi, leader of the Congress party, was disqualified as an MP in March after he was convicted and sentenced to jail in a defamation case related to comments made about Mr Modi’s surname at an election rally in 2019. Unless his legal appeal is successful, he cannot contest next year’s election.
Many of the opposition parties are also at loggerheads with each other in states such as West Bengal and Delhi due to differing political ideologies.
Some, like the Nationalist Congress Party, are battling internal defections, while others are trying to deal with a lack of unity among senior state leaders.
However, observers say that a strong anti-BJP sentiment is uniting the opposition, pushing them to look past their differences.
On Monday, Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge said that opposition parties will “work closely together to foster an agenda of social justice, inclusive development and national welfare”.
“We want to free the people of India from the autocratic and anti-people politics of hate, division, economic inequality and loot,” he added.
Reports say that Sonia Gandhi may be chosen as the coalition’s president, but there is no official confirmation yet.
Meanwhile, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance is also set to hold a meeting of 38 allies on Tuesday in the capital Delhi.
On Monday, BJP president JP Nadda had criticised the opposition meeting, saying its foundation was based on “the politics of selfishness”.
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BMA prepared for flooding as storm nears
PUBLISHED : 18 Jul 2023 at 12:56
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is fully prepared to cope with the heavy rain and flooding expected to be brought by tropical storm Talim, a senior official said.
Surat Charoenchaisakul, director of city drainage and sewerage, said on Tuesday the flood prevention control centre had been instructed to closely monitor the storm’s movement and forecasts issued by the Meteorological Department.
The BMA weather radar station was monitoring the movement of rain clouds heading for Bangkok and its vicinity, so that precautions could be implemented. Water levels in canals and retention areas had been lowered under the flood prevention plan.
Mobile rapid response units were ready for deployment to flooded areas, including tunnels, to make sure that floodwater is drained off quickly, he said.
All pumping stations were being staffed around the clock to ensure all equipment and back-up power generators were functional. Mobile water pumps, cranes, balloon lights, fuel and other equipment were on standby, ready to be sent where needed.
All construction sites had been asked to ensure effective drainage.
Several meetings had been held with local administrations in adjacent provinces to lay down plans for flood relief operations, Mr Surat said.