Singapore

The government of Singapore's regulatory actions against two prominent online news websites is a serious setback for freedom of expression on the Internet, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday. The Media Development Authority (MDA) ordered The Online Citizen in September 2014 and The Mothership in March to obtain licenses under the Broadcasting Act of 2013 to continue their online publishing. The...

The Singapore government has announced, as part of the nation's annual budget, that the radio and TV licence has been abolished effective January 1, 2011, according to the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union. The licences were first introduced in 1963. Premises with TV or radio sets, owners of vehicles with radios and dealers selling broadcast apparatus, paid for these licences. The fees collected...

Singapore plans to impose restrictions on a liberal, popular news website ahead of general elections Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong may call this year, according to Reuters. The Prime Minister's Office plans to designate "The Online Citizen" ( www.onlinecitizen.com) as a "political association," which means the website is banned from accepting donations from abroad. The office said the website was...

A Singapore court Tuesday sentenced British writer Alan Shadrake to six weeks in prison and a fine for 20,000 Singapore dollars (11,320 euros) for criticising the country’s use of the death penalty in his book Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock. Failure to pay the fine would add two weeks to his sentence. Paris-based press freedom group Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) deplored the...

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has condemned the Singapore High Court's sentencing of British author Alan Shadrake to prison over his book criticizing the nation's judiciary. The court Tuesday sentenced Shadrake, 76, to six weeks in prison, and fined him 20,000 Singapore dollars (US$15,400) for contempt of court, according to international news reports. He was convicted on November 3...

Singapore released on bail Tuesday a British author arrested two days earlier as part of a criminal defamation investigation related to his book on the city-state's death penalty policy. Alan Shadrake, a 75-year old freelance journalist, posted $10,000 Singapore dollars ($7,250) bail, said his lawyer, M Ravi. Police confiscated Shadrake's passport, interrogated him about the book and will question...

The Singapore government has refused to renew British freelance journalist Benjamin Bland’s work visa, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has reported. The government rejected his application to cover the recently concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting. Bland had planned to report on the summit for the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper. Bland’s visa...

A high court judge in Singapore ruled on March 19, 2009, that Melanie Kirkpatrick, deputy editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, was in contempt of court for two articles and a letter to the editor published by the Dow Jones-owned Wall Street Journal Asia last year, according to international news reports. Kirkpatrick was ordered to pay SG$10,000 (US$6,549), according to the...

An Australian television correspondent who said he was traumatised from covering wars and natural disasters has been sentenced to jail for 10 months by a Singapore court for drug offences. Peter Lloyd, 42, New Delhi-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), was arrested while on holiday in Singapore on July 16, and pleaded guilty to three drug-related offences. In...

Singapore's High Court has found the Wall Street Journal Asia in contempt of court for a commentary it published about the city-state in June and July. The court fined Dow Jones Publishing Co (Asia), a subsidiary of News Corp's Dow Jones & Co unit and publisher of the Wall Street Journal's Asian edition, 25,000 Singapore dollars (US$16,573)—the highest amount ever levied for such a case in...