{"id":72003,"date":"2016-04-18T12:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-04-18T11:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=72003"},"modified":"2016-04-16T15:31:07","modified_gmt":"2016-04-16T14:31:07","slug":"singapore-family-feud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/04\/singapore-family-feud\/","title":{"rendered":"Singapore Family Feud"},"content":{"rendered":"

The city-state\u2019s reputation for meritocracy comes under attack from an unexpected source.<\/em><\/p>\n

11 Apr 2016 – <\/em>Singapore\u2019s self-image as a meritocracy has come under attack on social media from an unexpected source: former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew\u2019s daughter. Posting on Facebook, neurosurgeon Lee Wei Ling accused her brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, of having \u201cno qualms abusing his power to [have] a commemoration just one year after LKY died.\u201d She continued, \u201cIf the power that be wants to establish a dynasty, LKY\u2019s daughter will not allow LKY\u2019s name to be sullied by a dishonorable son.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Lee answered on Facebook hours later that, \u201cThe accusations are completely untrue.\u201d Meanwhile, the state-controlled media have published accusations against Ms. Lee.<\/p>\n

The family feud started when Ms. Lee submitted to the Straits Times newspaper an opinion article that objected to \u201chero worship\u201d of her father on the first anniversary of his death. Editors there made cuts that Ms. Lee found objectionable, and she withdrew the piece.<\/p>\n

Ms. Lee then posted the article on Facebook with the complaint that over a decade of writing a weekly column for the newspaper she was censored by three successive editors on sensitive topics. \u201cI will no longer write for [Singapore Press Holdings] as the editors there do not allow me freedom of speech,\u201d she insisted.<\/p>\n

Janadas Devan, one of Ms. Lee\u2019s previous editors and the son of former President Devan Nair, fired back that Ms. Lee was edited, not censored, because her articles were \u201clike sailing through fog.\u201d Ivan Fernandez, her current editor, accused her of plagiarism, a charge she denies.<\/p>\n

On Sunday Ms. Lee posted on Facebook email correspondence with Mr. Fernandez that included the accusation of dynasty-building by her brother. Later that day the material was taken down. Prime Minister Lee\u2019s Facebook response stated, \u201cMeritocracy is a fundamental value of our society, and neither I, the [People\u2019s Action Party], nor the Singapore public would tolerate any such attempt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Singapore\u2019s leaders have a long record of successfully suing individuals and publications that accuse them of cronyism or nepotism. In 2013 the government extended its censorship rules to include online publications. Last month a court convicted Japanese-Australian editor Ai Takagi of sedition after her website carried four articles that the prosecution said \u201cpromote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different groups of people in Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n

hough Ms. Takagi apologized \u201cfor the harm I have caused through my actions,\u201d pleaded guilty to sedition and is pregnant, she was sentenced to 10 months in prison.<\/p>\n

The Prime Minister now faces an awkward decision of whether to take legal recourse against his sister, a former head of the National Neuroscience Institute, since clemency could be construed as favoritism. He and his father always maintained that libel lawsuits are necessary to protect the reputations of the country\u2019s leaders.Meanwhile, Ms. Lee\u2019s rejected article has started a useful debate over the proliferation of fawning tributes to the late Prime Minister and his legacy of punishing those who disagreed with the government.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsj.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The city-state\u2019s reputation for meritocracy comes under attack from an unexpected source.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72003\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}