Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 187 posts

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#61

Post by hkt »

toyg wrote: post #52
nbevans wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They use water cannon in the rest of Europe, and even tear gas. What's the problem? They should have had a water cannon for the London Riots in 2012 - and that is why they purchased some. Which the current mayor has selfishly used for political points by selling them off for barely 10k. He will be praying they aren't ever needed.

As a foreigner, the UK police is widely admired for their restraint. Tactics like kettling, for all their drawbacks, are absolutely preferable to the alternatives seen elsewhere in Europe. It’s one of those things, like the lack of ID cards and centuries-long administrative continuity, that really set the UK apart from most other places and made it a beacon of pragmatic liberalism. Wish for “normalization” at your pe…

Yes, people don't seem to realise that we have a policing model that is probably among the best in the world. Better to kettle people occasionally than blind them with watercannon and tear gas - or as the Americans seem to prefer, shoot them in the back while they run away.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#63

Post by [deleted] »

pjc50 wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #3

> In Singapore, it is a criminal offence under the Public Order Act to organize or participate in a public assembly without a police permit. :(

It's a police state. A very neat and tidy one, but one with severe penalties; one of the few places still using corporal punishment officially.

[deleted]

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#64

Post by philliphaydon »

cinquemb wrote: post #54
inferiorhuman wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some of my wife's family has lived there and Indonesia for a while, and it is agreed that out of all the places in SE asia, it is a good place to make money and potentially for schooling when young, they plan on moving when retiring. Not having to shoulder the cost of an aging population would work very well for SG.

You should see their subways when they are littered with signs for people to get pregnant. "Pool of citizens aged 65 and older grew to 14.4% this year, from 9.4% in 2007, as lifespans increase and births stay low"[0] [0] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/spore-ageing-at-faste...

I've never ever seen signs in the MRT about anything to do with pregnancy... (been here 7 years, catch the MRT to work every day, yellow and green lines)

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#65

Post by lolc »

angelsl wrote: post #60

Why is everyone focusing on the fact that someone spoke via Skype? The fact is that 1. Jolovan Wham did organise a physical gathering of people 2. The gathering/assembly meets the definition as in the Public Order Act[1] 3. The venue, The Agora, meets the definition of a public place as in the Public Order Act [1]: https://sso.agc.gov.sg/Act/POA2009 They could have been watching a recorded video and it would have bee…

Ah, I was wondering how Skype played a role. So there's no reason it shows up in the title.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#66

Post by ed_balls »

nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

Is it really 1 in a million? There are other pseudo democracies that are doing well e.g. Liechtenstein

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#67

Post by cinquemb »

philliphaydon wrote: post #64
cinquemb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should see their subways when they are littered with signs for people to get pregnant. "Pool of citizens aged 65 and older grew to 14.4% this year, from 9.4% in 2007, as lifespans increase and births stay low"[0] [0] https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/spore-ageing-at-faste...

I've never ever seen signs in the MRT about anything to do with pregnancy... (been here 7 years, catch the MRT to work every day, yellow and green lines)

This was sometime between Feb 27 and early march 2017 passing through some station on coming from somerset station on the red line, coming off one of the trains and on the walking tram, there was a huge billboard for it.

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#68

Post by virtualwhys »

anvandare wrote: post #33
nindalf wrote: post #15

I see people in this thread surprised that this is happening in Singapore, a “modern” country. Singapore is certainly wealthy, the population is highly educated, institutions aren’t corrupt, all of which is great. However, the political system resembles a democracy only superficially. Every election since 1965 has been won by the same party. It is inconceivable that the People’s Action Party wouldn’t win an election…

>that one Dictator in a million Also called an enlightened despot; In the Eastern -Chinese Legalism tradition- a 明君 "míngjūn". There have been instances of them throughout history. But like you said, the problem is usually what happens once the ruler is gone. It's never a (long-term) good idea to have the success of a group dependant on a single person. A political system that produces mediocre-but-stable success (ov…

> what happens once the ruler is gone

Well, in the case of Singapore, his son takes over [1]. Interestingly (for the HN crowd) he knows C++ and iirc from an old thread about the current PM, Haskell.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Hsien_Loong

Re: Singapore activist found guilty of hosting ‘illegal assembly’ via Skype

#69

Post by Nasrudith »

flag_bcz_mad wrote: post #23

Why does everyone assume democracy is good? It clearly wasn’t necessary for Singapore. A well run “dictatorship” is much better than your average democracy. I would concede that a democracy filled with the right people is the best but in reality it is very rare to come upon a population that is actually ready to govern itself. People generally have extremely reductionist and incorrect opinions about such things in my…

Why are you assuming Singapore is truly well run? Dictators lie their asses off about quality of life and paper over problems with violence. Just wealth isn't a reason - Saudi Arabia is wealthy but sure as hell not well run.
Post reply on HN