Moving my lips to Shanmugam's truth

K Shanmugam loves to share lessons he's learnt from Lee Kuan Yew. It looks like the LKY trait he took most to heart was the desire to make one's opponents "crawl on bended knees, and beg for mercy".

By now, many people are aware that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) sent directions to nine people to post apology and correction statements on our respective online platforms because we shared/re-shared an article from Mothership.sg that, in reporting on what Minister for Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam said during his speech on FICA (Foreign Interference Countermeasures Act) in Parliament, included a quote that MHA says has been “misquoted” and “twisted”. I am one of the nine people, and there are several issues I’d like to unpack regarding what has happened.

What is the contested quote?

Mothership.sg’s original article contained this wording:

“Shanmugam then shared how his views have evolved over time.

“Rule of law is a concept for lawyers, but it doesn’t operate in the real world,” he said.

He cited examples like the United States during 9/11, where “lip service is paid to all these grand concepts”, but whose societies “live in utter misery”.

So what did, and didn’t, the Minister say?

Do read the actual transcript (it’s in the comments of the linked post) of Minister Shanmugam’s response to Workers’ Party MP Pritam Singh’s question, which is the relevant portion, and decide for yourself if Mothership’s original article was (a) misquoting and misrepresenting the Minister’s views, (b) quoted his actual words, but took his quote out of context in a way that fundamentally changed its meaning or (c) quoted his actual words but stopped short of provide the fullest possible context for the quote by not including the words immediately before and after the quoted segment; however, they did not frame his words in a way that significantly departed from the general spirit of what he was saying.

I listened to the livestream of the Minister’s speech in parliament for hours. And then I parsed the transcript of his speech, but I did not commit every word to memory. And later, when I saw the Mothership.sg article, that quote did not jump out at me as being at odds with my own impressions of what the Minister had said in Parliament. His speech was riddled with contradictions and ambiguity when it came to his views on the rule of law and its implementation - in the name of “exceptions”, having to consider how things work in the “real world”, and the "genius" of not having everything be decided on by the Supreme Court. In fact, the contested quote seemed highly congruent with the rhetoric he repeated throughout his speech.

My opinion of his speech is that he paid lip service to the importance of rule of law at several points, but was not able to substantively demonstrate his commitment to its paramount importance, or show that Singapore’s lawmakers prioritise safeguarding it when they make their decisions. To the contrary, I thought that in blatant and egregious ways, his speech undermined the importance of due process, real checks and balances and true separation of powers, including - perhaps most troublingly - through his assertion that without preventive detention, and without denying some groups of people the right to trial, we couldn’t have stability in our society. It is not my view that rule of law has no importance to Shanmugam, which is what the letter from MHA suggested - that I implied rule of law does not operate in Singapore. Certainly, rule of law operates to an extent, but I think it is compromised when such compromise serves certain political agendas, in ways that deeply disturb me.

Shanmugam also insisted, in his response to Singh’s question, that order has to come before law, and without order first, law cannot take meaningful effect. I understand this to mean that the way in which order is brought about to a society needn’t always be constrained by the principles of rule of law, and in fact, extrajudicial methods and executive powers unrestrained by the courts are necessary to bring about order. This was one of the positions he took that alarmed me the most (see here for my views on other parts of his speech).

In Parliament that day, Shanmugam repeated a few times that as a young lawyer, he believed fully and firmly that the courts should make the final decision, that he instinctively did not like an approach that tried to cut back on judicial review or take away the powers of the judiciary, but that he has *since changed his mind*, because of the "realities of life", and he now believes that exceptions have to be made. In relation to this point, he said, “If a man looks at facts, the real world, and refuses to change his mind, he is either stupid, or he is ideological." In my reading of it, all of these statements are not different in spirit or general meaning from the contested quote - “rule of law is a concept for lawyers, but it doesn’t operate in the real world”, though, granted, this wording is particularly stark.

Minister Shanmugam, the Ministry of Home Affairs, the POFMA Office, Gov.sg, and mainstream media outlets like The Straits Times and TODAY claim that the nine of us have published false statements / twisted the Minister’s words / completely misrepresented him. But anyone who heard or read Minister Shanmugam's speech that day could not be faulted for seeing the congruence - especially since he repeated the same fragments (e.g. “real world”), in multiple parts of his speech - between everything we know he said, and the way the Mothership.sg article quoted him.

Bloated rhetoric around rule of law

It is not at all reassuring to me that while giving a speech meant to defend and advocate for a Bill that, in my view, threatens the rule of law, the Minister for Home Affairs peppers his speech with claims that he believes in the rule of law.

My understanding of a society that upholds the rule of law without reservation is one where the judiciary is fully empowered to review decisions or actions made by a public body or political office holder, like a Minister. It is a society where it is the courts - and only the courts - which determine if a law has been broken/an offence has been committed, it is the courts that pronounce guilt, and it is the courts that determine the penalty for an offence within the bounds of the law. In many real and undeniable ways, such protections are increasingly disappearing in Singapore, including and especially with powers like the kind FICA bestows on Ministers. I call it undermining rule of law. Shanmugam calls it "exceptions", the parameters of which, of course, he gets to define.

In his speech, Shanmugam gave several examples from other countries of how, in his view, “rule of law doesn't operate in the real world”. But apparently, we are to know that this “real world” doesn’t include Singapore. The thing about his speech that was most confusing to me is why he thinks our CLTPA (Criminal Law [Temporary Provisions] Act) and ISA (Internal Security Act) are all that different from the injustice of Guantanamo.

He said, "So you see 9-11. You look at the way the Americans have dealt with it. You see the issues in western Europe. You see the issues around the world, where lip service is paid to all these grand concepts, but the societies live in utter misery, where rule of law is a concept for lawyers, but it doesn’t operate in the real world.”

And then he said, as if in contrast, “So I looked at all of this, experienced practicing in courts, and too many years as an MP. Long conversations with the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew, discussing, I would say arguing, though it is not easy to argue with him, discussing, tough discussions. And then I began to understand the meaning of his original speech to the Law Society, when he said, law and order – I reverse it, order first before law. Because if you don’t have order, you cannot have law. We all really, we think we understand it. But I don’t think we really do. You need to really imbibe what is the meaning of that. If you can’t have the CLTPA and arrest the gangsters, how are you going to have law? It will be a paper law. But if you can bring order into society, then your law will take full effect. Look at the state of our society, look at the number of people under CL today, compared to the number of people under CL even 10 years ago. It’s halved. And the reason is, as society develops, as society progressed, as there is stability, as there is order, the law takes stronger and stronger roots. You get that wrong, you will neither have law, nor order.”

And then a little further down, he said, “…Americans were struggling with it. I mean they had ideological commitment to due process. Everyone must be tried. Everyone must have a lawyer, everyone must be given a full trial. But then they have these, I don’t know, X hundred, or thousand plus terrorists whom they don’t want to give a trial…they said Guantanamo is in Cuba, our rules and laws don’t apply, there’s no due process, we lock them up and we throw away the keys. Let’s-that’s why I said let’s get out of this colonisation of our minds.”

If someone else is able to shed light on what I’m missing here, I’ll be very glad to be proven wrong. But this is terribly confusing. How is what Shanmugam refers to as “lip service” and “ideological commitment” to rule of law in the US or Europe any different from Shanmugam saying that he believes in rule of law, judicial review, separation of powers, due process (i.e. his ideological commitment!) but that we need exceptions like ISA, CLTPA, POFMA (Protection from Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act), FICA, preventive detention, etc which have meant that we too, over the years, have had hundreds of people in Singapore detained - sometimes for decades - and denied trial? How come Guantanamo is a contradiction/evidence of hypocrisy and the abandonment of rule of law, but ISA, CLTPA, POFMA and FICA are legitimate “exceptions”?

And then towards the end, he says (emphasis mine), "because Singapore believes in the law, so we put forward the law, we give ourselves legal powers. But in reality, the kind of threats we face, the kind of adversaries and the resources they have in terms of manpower, are far greater than what we have." And therefore his point is that we need powers beyond/other than legal powers, to face these threats. Doesn't this also sound an awful lot like an ideological commitment that doesn’t in fact hold up in the “real world”?

Who is actually being misrepresented and slandered by false statements?

None of the media outlets that ran the Ministry of Home Affairs’ multiple press releases on this issue asked the nine of us for comments before publishing the press releases as fact. Anyone reading these media reports might reasonably conclude that we concocted and maliciously published falsehoods, or if they were being generous to us, that we acted irresponsibly.

One of the things I find most stark in all this is that the nine of us were directed to publish apologies and corrections as per the wording sent us to us by the Ministry of Home Affairs, while Mothership.sg, which is the originally publisher of an article the rest of us simply shared and quoted from, just published an editor’s note to clarify and correct the misrepresentation. Mothership.sg did not have to issue an apology. In some reports, they are mentioned as a mere afterthought. And in yet other official statements, such as this one on the government’s “fact-checking” page, they are completely absent from the narrative. The statement here claims that the nine of us published false posts misrepresenting the Minister, clarifies what they say the Minister meant, and that eight of us have since apologised and/or posted corrections/clarifications - that is all. This is what goes into the public record.

This blog post I’m writing or the Facebook posts that my peers have put up as clarifications do not carry anywhere near the same gravitas, nor will they make it to the archives like our media reports and government statements do. The narrative, as it has played out, is that we all made a mistake, and ate our words. We have no meaningful right of response or accessible avenues for redressal. Whatever this means for posterity, it already has implications for our reputations, credibility and work. Just this morning, a speaker I had invited to an event I am organising pulled out, citing, among other things, the TODAY article that says I published falsehoods about the Minister and have since complied with a direction to apologise. This is a narrative where I am guilty, and accept the guilt.

Dangerous abuse of power

In Oct 2020, blogger Leong Sze Hian was ordered to pay Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong S$133,000 in damages for sharing an article by Malaysian website The Coverage on his Facebook page. The article alleged that PM Lee had helped former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak launder money in relation to scandal-hit Malaysian state fund 1Malaysia Development Berhad. But Leong Sze Hian was acting here like millions of readers on the internet do - sharing something they read by posting a link to it on their social media page. This is what the nine of us did too.

Sharing articles is one of the main activities that social media platforms like Facebook are designed for, and encourage, so much so that most people today get their news from their social media feeds, via articles others in their social media network share.

When one is made to confess to wrongdoing publicly, when one is made to issue a public apology, one naturally considers what one did wrong. Because it is ingrained in us that we apologise when we make a mistake. If we have to make a public apology, then it’s probably a really grave mistake. And so it follows that one wonders what one could have done to avoid such a mistake. Is someone who reads a Mothership.sg article - especially given that Mothership.sg is not considered to be an independent, anti-establishment or critical voice, and where this happens to be an article that doesn’t make any contentious claims or discuss a controversial topic, but rather, is simply meant to be a straightforward report of what a Minister said in Parliament - supposed to fact-check every quote, and consider if there is any chance that any quote in some way misrepresents the truth, before sharing it?

If one stops to think about what this means in practice, it gets even more absurd. At the time Mothership.sg published the article, the official transcript of the parliamentary debate wasn’t ready. So this check would’ve looked like listening (in my case, for a second time) to long stretches of a debate that lasted more than 10 hours. And given that the difference between what Mothership.sg reported and what the Minister claims he meant is quite nuanced, and Mothership.sg’s original interpretation of his words matches my own, such a check would still not have alerted me to any misrepresentation.

So the question - “what could I have done differently?” - leaves me stumped. It reminds me that this is not so much about the fact that I shared and quoted from an article, but who I am in their eyes - someone they need to put in her place. We keep talking about a climate of fear, a chilling effect on speech, expression, even thought. People being nervous to share news, discuss issues, offer their interpretation or critique of a powerful person’s views; people gaslighting themselves and each other about what is a misstep, what is “irresponsible” speech, what is truth/falsehood - these are the scars such atrocious policing leaves on our psyches.

When Leong was sued for sharing an article without comment, many people’s sensibilities were deeply offended. There was shock, incredulity. This time, when the nine of us were asked to apologise, some people said, “well, what did you expect? It’s no surprise. We know from Sze Hian’s case that they can go after you even if you didn’t write something yourself, and just share a link.” This normalisation, this shift in our standards of what violates our sense of fairness and proportionality - this is what terrifies me.

A personal reckoning

Like some other activists in Singapore, my politics and work has meant that I have lost jobs, opportunities, friends, and health. I have faced hostile police interrogations, received warnings, and my employers have been intimidated. I have been subjected to death threats, trolling and doxxing by pro-PAP sites. There have been previous attempts by those in power to discredit and undermine me, malign my intentions and my work. As a result of all this, some segments of civil society keep a distance from me, and won’t collaborate with me, because they are afraid of being painted with the same brush, of being guilty by association. Through all of this, what I have held on to and found comfort in, is a residing sense of who I am and what I stand for. I have always said to myself, “Let them come after everything. My principles, they can never take.”

But two days ago, when I received a letter from the Ministry of Home Affairs that said I had to publish an apology within an hour, this belief was shaken. Human rights lawyers - my friends - were outraged at this abuse of power for which they could see no legal basis. Yet, they told me that if I didn’t comply, I could be sued for defamation, face POFMA or even criminal defamation. I thought about how precarious my position is, how there are no avenues for recourse that I can afford, how devastating the costs of being sued by the Minister for Home Affairs would be, the mental toll it would all take, the public shaming that would ensue. Because if they stoop this low, you know they will stoop lower.

It was all a blur, I didn’t have the time to consider my options. I sent a response to the MHA email address that I received the notice from, saying that an hour is unreasonable and asking what the legal basis is for such a direction to be sent by the Ministry of Home Affairs (rather than, say, the POFMA Office or a demand letter from the Minister’s own lawyers). I was baffled that, in fact, the notice was signed by the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Senior Director of Policy Development Division. I cannot fathom what gives MHA’s Director of Policy Development the power to send orders of this nature to private citizens, and neither can any lawyer I have spoken to.

To further add insult to injury, the letter, while signed by the Director, wasn’t sent from his email address. It was sent from the generic MHA feedback email, because of course they didn’t expect to engage with any response. I didn’t receive a reply before the deadline. My lawyer friend urged me to post the apology online before the hour was up. Against her advice, I edited the language of the apology and correction notice they told me to post. I edited it for accuracy, and some measure of integrity, such that I could still live with it. I told myself, “well, seeing this now, Mothership’s language *was* a bit misleading, so it’s OK to acknowledge that.”

I posted the statement, and followed up with MHA again. I found the number of the person who signed off on the order and called him, asking questions about the legal basis for his direction, and why I was given the unreasonable deadline of an hour. He didn’t have any satisfactory answers for me. He insisted that my apology had to be in the language shared in MHA’s letter, even if it was an inaccurate description of my actions. I refused, pointing to specific inaccuracies that he was able to recognise too, and he said he would “check with (MHA’s) lawyers” if my wording is OK and get back to me. He didn’t. He kept repeating that they were trying to “clear up a misunderstanding”, and “clarify what the Minister meant”. Well, if the Minister / Ministry wanted to clarify, then that’s all they needed to do, isn’t it - publish a clarification. They have every platform, every communication tool at their disposal. But yet, they came after us.

Today, I am reeling from the fact that I complied with this direction, though it didn’t feel true or right. There were tiny acts of resistance, like editing the notice, challenging the civil servant who ultimately was probably just following instructions. But in the end, I still posted something that didn’t resonate with me. I took responsibility for something that I don’t believe was my mistake or should incur such sanctions.

Perhaps it seems small, and in many ways, it is. Perhaps it seems like pride, an ego hurt from having to eat humble pie. But to me, it feels like the most intimate violation, a form of self-betrayal. It might sound like I am being harsh on myself, but I am not. I am angry, but not with myself. I am angry that people in power do this to us, that they can not only punish, alienate and discredit us, but also erode our self-respect. And I am sitting with that anger today.

Here’s a poem I wrote during the 2018 Select Committee hearings on POFMA. It seems fitting, under the circumstances.

White Lies

Have you encountered The Truth?

It is omnipresent, omniscient

Never created, nor destroyed

But illegitimately elected

The Truth whispers its stories into schoolbooks

Shouts them from podiums

Prints them in newspapers

Belts them out in National Day songs

And watches if your lips are moving to a different tune

The Truth is trained to pick you out from a crowd

The doubt that creases your brow

And the questions you hold under your tongue

They give you away

If your disbelief slips between your lips

You will face its wrath in courtrooms or parliamentary hearings

Police officers who raid your homes and seize your laptops

If your disbelief slips between your lips

You might lose your job

Or your mind

Become a fruit seller in London

Grow old away from family and familiarity

So you can learn to tell The Truth

If your disbelief slips between your lips,

You must wash your mouth out with soap,

Receive a good beating,

And sit in a corner, face the wall,

Till you are prepared to confess The Truth on national television

The Truth is a skilled weaver

It spins white cotton tales and weaves them into a tight social fabric

It ties this cloth over its eyes

as it executes young men

rushes bills through parliament

and smiles for the camera

The Truth can only thrive

When it flattens our messy world

Mutes religious ecstasy

Ridicules disagreements

Denies inconvenient desires

Controls the internet full of falsehoods

Colonises community life

Erases inconvenient memories

Imprisons nonconforming bodies and minds

So listen carefully

The Truth is often disguised

As a white lie

Sync your lips

Swallow your questions

And learn to tell The Truth.

---

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