SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Singapore has jailed a prominent opposition leader for three weeks after he failed to pay a fine for trying to leave the city-state without permission from the government, as required of him as a bankrupt.
Chee Soon Juan, an outspoken critic of the government and leader of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), was fined S$4,000 ($2,621) after he tried to leave in April last year to attend a democracy conference in Turkey, his sister Chee Siok Chin said.
Under Singapore’s laws, bankrupts who leave the city-state without permission from the government may be fined up to S$10,000 or jailed up to two years.
Chee, who has had multiple run-ins with the Singapore government, was declared bankrupt in February 2006 after he failed to make libel payments of S$500,000 to former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong.“
He did not pay because it was partly a matter of principle,” said Chee Siok Chin, also a senior SDP member. “It’s ridiculous that they even flagged a fine on a bankrupt.”
Chee Soon Juan has been jailed five times since 1999 for speaking in public without a permit, and for questioning the independence of Singapore’s judiciary.
A neuropsychologist by training, Chee was sacked from his job as a lecturer at the National University of Singapore in 1993 after he was accused of improperly using S$226 for postage.The Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review magazine — owned by Dow Jones (DJ.N: Quote, Profile, Research) — is being sued by Lee and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong after it featured Chee last year criticising the government’s handling of a pay-and-perks scandal at Singapore’s largest charity.Chee’s party did not win any parliament seats in last year’s May poll, but won 23 percent of the votes in the wards it contested.
