Singapore Democrats

Re: "Human Rights Watch criticized Singapore's continued legal ban on private and consensual sexual relations between men and called for it to be overturned."

Section 377 and 377a were put on the statutes in 1861. Yet long after gay rights got on to the agenda of Western countries, many of whose citizens now occupy positions in Human Rights Watch.

But gay rights only got on to the agenda of Western journalists and international human rights organizations when LGBT Singaporeans raised a huge stink about it.

The moral of the story: This documentation by Human Rights watch would ONLY have been possible if Singaporeans first raise the issues, and DOCUMENT the abuses of human rights in the country.

Re: "Its chapter on Singapore says the government fails to meet human rights standards in a number of critical areas, including freedom of expression, association, and assembly."

Again, this has been in the Constitution from the word "go". But it is evident from the article - given the linking of the above statement to the most recent conviction against Ms Chee, Mr Gandhi Ambalam and Dr Chee - that documentation by Human Rights Watch.

This too can be considered one measure of success in the SDP's CD campaign: if you don't land in court, then there is no record of a case.

There are NO human rights abuses in Sinmgapore.

I reckon that the mere documentation of the outcome of the Flyer Distribution case is also a measure of sucess of CD.

The following information is adapted from the chapter on “Human Rights” in “Introduction to Political Theory” by John Hoffman and Paul Graham. The commentary is my own.

This post is about the *nature* of rights as they are found in the legal codes of many common law systems, but not about the rights themselves. Additionally, not all the rights under discussion fall within the ambit of human rights. This is also about responsibilities, which in the Singapore context has frequently been posited by detractors of human rights including the PAP government, as being only the responsibilities that the right-holder has. But there has never been to my knowledge any attempt to discuss the responsibilities that others have to respect to the rights of the right-holder.

The ideas contained here are attributed to American legal theorist Wesley Hohfeld.

Hohfeld’s fundamental premise is that all rights are relationships: if Jane has a right to do something, then there is something that Sam must do, or *refrain* from doing.

Following from his premise, he delineates 4 different types of rights that are found in legal codes in the countries under the common law system, claim, powers, privilege (which later critics have termed to be “liberties” and which I agree), and immunities.

1. Claim (as a right) and Duty (as a responsibility)

If Jane possesses a *claim*, she is in a position legitimately to demand something from another person, or group of persons; that other person (or those people) is (or are) under a *duty* to perform the demanded action.

For example, if Jane books a flight then she has entered into a contract with the airline company that will supply a seat on a specified flight. Jane now has a claim against the the airline company, and were the airline company not to supply the seat, Jane could take action in law. (This is what is meant by saying that rights are actionable.)

The claim to the seat was established because Jane exercised another type of right – power (see #2 below) – when she entered into the contract. However, claims need not be the result of a contract.

2. Powers (as rights) and Liability (as a responsibility)

A *power* entails the ability to create legal relationships. The right to marry is a power that when exercised, alters one’s legal relationships to the person s/he marries as well to those outside the marriage contract. The responsibility that those outside the marriage contract is a *liability* used in the sense of “something disadvantageous”.

Another type of power is *vested power*. The President has powers vested in him by the Constitution, and when he exercises those powers, citizens are *liable* to obey. (We are of course assuming a non-corrupt establishment.)

(...cont)

3. Liberties (as rights) and Duty Not to Interfere (as a responsibility)

(This is the type of right that we are likely to be most interested because of the challenges that the SDP routinely encounters; I will be incorporating this into an expanded version of my own argument in the Flyer Distribution case and then making it available.)

I’m sure we need no reminder that examples of liberties are those found in Section IV of the Constitution. but the important point here is that, in an individual’s exercise of a *liberty*, others – and that includes the State – have a *duty not to interfere*.

It is the severe neglect of this responsibility by the State, that the PAP’ government’s actions become highly questionable in a multitude of instances.

4. Immunities (as rights) and Disability (as a responsibility)

Two examples of immunities as rights would be right to citizenship (the government cannot strip you of this right) and the more topical diplomatic immunity.

Legal *immunities* exist to insulate the right-holder from the powers of the legislature: an immunity *disables”* the legislature from exercising powers that would change your legal position; they simply accept that they do not have those powers.

Just as it is with the question of law-breaking, detractors of CD often place the onus for violence and its prevention on CD’s defenders; it’s invariably a diabolical attempt to reverse the responsibility from the initial instance of violence that they inflict on those who resort to CD, as well as the actually violent elements in society.

If overcoming internalized oppression is a goal, I see it is supremely important to redirect responsibility to exactly where it belongs: with the perpetrators. In Singapore that means the State and its many apologists like BryanT.

It is important to note that people who have experienced constant exposure to violence – physical, emotional, psychological, and even sexual - could in some instances turn out to be the perpetrators themselves. Defenders of CD are usually acutely aware of this which explains their insistence on CD as a non-violent expression of dissent so as not to sabotage their actions.

At the same time, it should be noted from both all previous experiences in CD that violence almost always begins (and often even ends) with law enforcement authorities more than those engaging in CD action.

The following information is adapted from the chapter on “Terrorism” in “Introduction to Political Theory” by John Hoffman and Paul Graham. While this falls under the discipline of political economy, I have found from past experience that the sociology makes a similar but more detailed and more accessible explanation of the same topic.

Salmi – I think his first name could be Jamil – who is a development economist from Morocco, has written an important work titled “Violence and Democratic Society”. In it he defines violence as an act that threatens a person’s physical and psychological integrity, and he distinguishes between four types of violence:

1. *direct violence* [or physical violence] involves deliberate attacks that inflict harm (kidnappings, homicide, rape, torture). This would certainly embrace terrorism. But Salmi distinguishes between direct and

2. *indirect violence* when, he argues, violence is inflicted unintentionally as in cases of *violence by omission* when, say, inaction contributes to starvation or genocide (as in Roosevelt’s failure to intervene in 1942 against Hitler’s final solution). This indirect violence may also take the form of what Salmi calls *mediated violence* that occurs when individuals or institutions produce goods or trade in weapons of war which (again unintentionally) damage the health and environment of others.

[Robox: I am doubtful of the ‘unintentionality’ that Salmi claims in the above in a good many cases.]

Salmi’s third category relates to what he calls

3. *repressive violence*, when people are deprived of their political, civil, social and economic rights, while

4. *alienating violence* - his fourth category – embraces the kind of oppression (ethnic and male chauvinism, racism, hostile acts of homophobia, opposition to AIDS sufferers, etc.) that undermines a person’s emotional, cultural and intellectual development.

I’m sure that readers who have read the above trying to imagine it’s relevance to Singapore that the point that I am driving (especially #3 and #4) at is that it is the State – the PAP government – that has long engaged in a campaign of violence against its own citizens.