Singapore government agency backs off suing student over comments

I realise I am rather late on the case, but my view since Day 1 is that this is a fucking dumb and stupid thing that shouldn't have started in the first place. Since when does a person have to be held responsible - and then apologise - for what he writes in his personal journal? What difference does it make that it's on the Web and available to anybody who stumbles upon it?

The real discussion shouldn't be about what he wrote or what the punishment should be, if any. It's the very scary and very real prospect that someone may get sued or arrested because of what he or she writes on a personal web site.

The real world invades the cyber one.

SINGAPORE (AP) -

A Singapore government agency said on Tuesday it will not sue a Singaporean student in the United States after he shut down his personal Web site and apologized for comments he had posted on it about the agency.

Singapore's Agency of Science, Technology and Research, or A*STAR, threatened to sue University of Illinois student Chen Jiahao over comments about the agency that Chen has posted on his Web log or blog, a personal online journal.

It was not immediately clear whether the agency had threatened to sue Chen in the United States or in Singapore.

Chen's blog, which he said formerly had hundreds of postings, on Tuesday contained only his apology for "distress and embarrassment caused to them by these statements".

He had said in another Singapore-based Internet journal last week that he was not sure which postings the agency found defamatory.

He acknowledged, however, that he had criticized the agency's scholarship policies and had mentioned the name of its chairman, Philip Yeo.

Chen said Yeo "had demanded that I remove all posts which mentioned either him or A*STAR".

"I am disappointed and discouraged that Mr. Yeo had not attempted to correct any possible misconceptions that I may have had over the interpretation of publicly available information, deciding instead to threaten to sue me for defamation," Chen said.

"I cannot say that such actions have promoted the cause of getting young Singaporeans to speak out."

On Tuesday, A*STAR spokeswoman Yeo Wen Qing said the agency was not "taking issue with the criticism".

"We are looking at something more serious … targeting statements that were untrue," she said, without elaborating.

Singapore often draws international criticism for its tight regulation of political activity and the media. The country's leaders have a history of successfully suing opposition politicians and foreign journalists for defamation.

The leaders argue that they have the right to sue anyone making false statements against them.

International media rights groups Reporters San Frontiers and the Committee to Protect Journalists have expressed concern over the lawsuit threat against Chen.

"Such intimidation could make the country's blogs as timid and obedient as the traditional media", Reporters San Frontiers said on its Web site.