Singapore punishes ‘Review’

Press, 28 December 1987, Page 8

Singapore punishes ‘Review’

NZPA-Reuter Singapore An order by Singapore to the “Far Eastern Economic Review” to cut drastically its sales in Singapore is the fourth such action against a foreign publication in 17 months.

Since August, 1986, the Government has used a tough new law to restrict sales of foreign publications whose reports were deemed to be interfering in local politics. It has slashed by 90 per cent the circulations of “Time,” the “Asian Wall Street Journal,” “Asiaweek” and now the Hong Kong-based “Review.” “Time’s” circulation has since been restored.

The "Review” was the first foreign journal punished for its reporting. The other three were punished for refusing to print Government rejoinders to alleged mistakes in their reporting. The Government on Saturday cited the “Review” for “distorted and mischievous articles ... calculated to discredit and denigrate the Singapore Government.” It was ordered to limit its weekly sales in Singapore from December 29 to 500 copies from about 10,000 copies. In Hong Kong, the editor, Derek Davies, said the restriction amounted to an outright ban. Despite a multi-racial

population of 2.6 million people in one of the region’s wealthiest countries, Singaporeans have had to accept constraints on personal freedom, and the Government makes no apology for opposing a free press. The Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, has said: “We do not want our own journalists to model themselves on the Americans or the British and take an adversarial anti-establish-ment role.” ‘‘Partisanship or crusading for causes are best left to those societies that are accustomed to them.”

Singapore seems unlikely to buckle even under pressure.

When the United States State Department stepped into the “Asian Wall Street Journal” fray, Singapore told it in no uncertain terms to mind its own business. It said that if the State Department was concerned, it should keep United States journalists and newspapers out of Singapore. “Then no dispute can possibly arise.” Many Western newspapers and magazines are freely available in Singapore. “Time,” the “International Herald Tribune,” the "Economist,” “USA Today” and the “Asian Wall Street Journal” print their Asian or sub-re-gional editions in the island State.