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By Andrew Loh

In recent years, there have been instances where the Government took issue with civil society activists for allegedly having “crossed a line” from civil society activism to political activism.

The finger is pointed at those such as the former chairman of the Association of Muslim Professionals (AMP), Nizam Ismail, and the activists who stood up for the SMRT drivers who had gone on strike last December; not so recently, there was blogsite The Online Citizen which was gazetted in 2010, and author Catherine Lim in 1994.

The Straits Times on 4 May 2013 had a two-page report - written by Andrea Ong and Elgin Toh - on this seeming crossing of the line by activists. It is worth noting that the report highlighted activists and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) which are critical of the Government, and conspicuously left out examples of pro-Government or pro-establishment, and pro-PAP, activists and organisations which have similarly crossed the line from civil society activism to political activism.

By Andrew Loh

The news is all over the Internet now - cartoonist Leslie Chew, 37, of Demon-cratic Singapore, arrested for alleged sedition. Since the news broke late on Tuesday night, the number of "likes" on his Facebook page has jumped by about almost 2,000.

Apparently, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) were waiting for Leslie at his parents' house on Friday evening, around 10.30pm. Leslie had just returned from an overseas trip. When I spoke to him on Tuesday afternoon, he told me that initially there were just 3 officers, but the number grew to about 10 or more as they started to look through his things in the house. Eventually, they confiscated his handphone, hard disk, laptop, and asked him to surrender his passport.

By Andrew Loh

The problem of workplace discrimination was recently highlighted in the media and by the Minister for Manpower (MOM). The latest case involved government agencies placing age limits in hiring security guards in their tenders. Last month, two companies were taken to task for explicitly indicating a preference in hiring foreigners in their advertisements.

To Gilbert Goh, 51, the founder of transitioning.org, these are not new developments.

As far back as 4 years ago, he was already highlighting the discrimination faced by Singaporean workers, particularly the PMETs – professionals, managers, executives and technicians, who make up more than half of Singapore’s workforce. He started a website, and registered a society called Transitioning.org, to provide support to the unemployed. He even took to Speakers’ Corner to try to raise awareness of the problems faced by these workers. He also ran in the 2011 General Election under the banner of the opposition National Solidarity Party, contesting in Tampines GRC together with Goh Meng Seng, Reno Fong Chin Leong, Syafarin Sarif and Raymond Lim Peng Ann.

By Andrew Loh

When a hate speech is delivered in the august chambers of Parliament, you know something is not quite right.

Yet it did happen. In Singapore. In 2007, during the debate on the issue of Section 377A of the Penal Code. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong referred to that debate recently. [See here.] So did justice Quentin Loh. Lets revisit that debate.

Law professor Thio Li Ann, then a Nominated Member of Parliament (NMP), made an admittedly passionate speech against repealing that section in our law books. Unfortunately, Thio did so by also taking “tasteless digs at homosexual sex”, as academic Dr Cherian George put it.

“Thio also did a disservice to the majority of God-fearing Singaporeans – we who would like to believe that our faiths are ultimately about compassion, not the hateful, hurtful cheap shots that Thio felt compelled to deliver on our behalf,” Dr George said. “How I wished a theology professor or other religious scholar would have stepped into the debate at that point, to show how it might be possible to express a faith-based objection to homosexuality – minus the hate speech.”

What disturbed this writer was not the hate-filled content of Prof Thio’s speech, vulgar and reprehensible as it was.