[Ecommerce] Yahoo hosts Singaporean Net free speech forum, after dispute with Singapore Broadcasting Authority over registration

[James Love]

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Chiu 
Sent: Monday, May 13, 2002 2:51 PM
To: Csif-L@Jca. Apc. Org (E-mail)
Subject: Singaporean Net free speech forum returns

"Just who is Lee Kuan Few: a rabble-rouser intent on challenging Singapore's
ruling People's Action Party, or a wired-up global citizen looking for
broader public discussion in the tightly controlled city-state? 

"The answer to that question was being debated by Singaporeans yesterday as
they learned that a mysterious cyber-activist has breathed fresh life into a
defunct online free-speech forum. The moniker that he, she or they chose for
the shadowy driving force behind the 'New Sintercom' was a cheeky play on
the name of Singapore's founding father, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew. The
old-style Sintercom was shut down last August by founder Tan Chong Kee after
regulator Singapore Broadcasting Authority (SBA) asked him to register it as
a 'political Web site'. ...

"Originally hosted on servers at Stanford University in the United States,
Sintercom was later moved to Singapore-based technology owned by Pacific
Internet, a government-linked firm. Then Mr Tan pulled the plug, saying at
the time that he was 'too tired to go on'. 

"But yesterday the pro-government the Straits Times reported that Sintercom
was back, and was more of a challenge than before 'based in parts of the Net
difficult to reach'. In an e-mail interview posted online and in separate
remarks to the South China Morning Post, Lee Kuan Few said while he had no
connection with Mr Tan, 'we didn't want several years of effort to go down
the drain'. 

"'I feel that we represent a cross-section of Singaporeans who want to be
active citizens but who feel . . . discouraged by the government record of
curbing free speech,' Lee Kuan Few said. 'The good thing about the Internet
is that we can speak freely, albeit anonymously.' 

"New Sintercom - www.geocities.com/newsintercom/ - uses servers affiliated
with US technology giant Yahoo!."

See Jake Lloyd-Smith, "Cyber-activist revives free-speech forum," South
China Morning Post, May 9, 2002 at
http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu/Weekly2002/05.07.2002/Singapore3.htm  

Sincerely,
Christopher Chiu
Global Internet Liberty Campaign Organizer
American Civil Liberties Union

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James Love mailto:james.love@cptech.org
http://www.cptech.org +1.202.387.8030 mobile +1.202.361.3040
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James Love mailto:james.love@cptech.org
http://www.cptech.org +1.202.387.8030 mobile +1.202.361.3040