CPJ: Critics of Singapore's judiciary face reprisal

Singapore Democrats, 27 Sep 2008, Community to Protect Journalist (CPJ)

A court in Singapore sentenced a blogger to three months in jail on Thursday (watch video of Gopalan Nair's message before imprisonment), one week after the nation's attorney general sought contempt proceedings against The Wall Street Journal Asia. Both actions come in response to critical analysis of Singapore's judiciary in connection with a prominent defamation suit.

Blogger Gopalan Nair, a former Singapore citizen who obtained U.S. citizenship in 2005, had accused a high court judge of "prostituting herself" during a hearing to assess damages in a successful defamation suit filed by the ruling Lee family against an opposition newspaper, according to local and international news reports. Police had detained Nair for six days in May after he published the comments on his Web site Singapore Dissident, having traveled to Singapore to observe the three-day hearing. Nair, who plans to appeal the verdict, must begin serving the sentence on Saturday, the Straits Times said.

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