(SEAPA/IFEX) – A Singaporean activist has filed a police complaint against national broadcaster MediaCorp for allegedly violating the country’s Films Act in a move aimed at challenging the island’s censorship law, news reports say. Yap Keng Ho has accused MediaCorp of screening two programs about ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders in an alleged violation […]
(SEAPA/IFEX) – A Singaporean activist has filed a police complaint against national broadcaster MediaCorp for allegedly violating the country’s Films Act in a move aimed at challenging the island’s censorship law, news reports say.
Yap Keng Ho has accused MediaCorp of screening two programs about ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) leaders in an alleged violation of the Films Act, which bans political advertising using films or videos, as well as movies directed towards any political end, according to Agence France Presse (AFP).
The complaint, Yap said, was meant to expose a pro-ruling party bias in the legislation, which was the basis of a government ban on a documentary by independent filmmaker Martyn See on opposition leader Chee Soon Juan in March 2005.
“I feel that it is a very unfair and biased legislation,” Yap, a 44-year-old information technology consultant, told AFP. “I want to show the world whether law enforcement (in Singapore) is going to be fair or not.”
Yap’s complaint alleges that MediaCorp violated the Films Act by screening programmes in 2002 and 2005 featuring Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the news agency said in a 2 September report.
The complaint comes in the heels of a police investigation into the case of See, whose documentary, “Singapore Rebel”, was banned from screening at the Singapore International Film Festival in March after it was deemed too political by the Board of Film Censors.
Under threat of jail time and a fine of up to 100,000 Singaporean dollars (approx. US$60,000), the filmmaker pulled out his 26-minute documentary from the film festival.
On 29 August, See surrendered to police his camera and remaining tapes of the film, which focused on the travails of Chee, secretary-general of the opposition Singapore Democratic Party, who is facing bankruptcy after the High Court ordered him to pay 500,000 Singapore dollars (approx. US$300,000) for defaming PAP leaders.
Singapore is one of the most affluent nations in Southeast Asia but also one of the most restrictive.
