Singapore leaders demand $929,000 from 'IHT' daily
Singapore leaders demand $929,000 from 'IHT' daily
SINGAPORE (AFP): Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong yesterday demanded S$500,000 (US$357,000) in damages from the International Herald Tribune (IHT) over a 1994 article alleging political nepotism in Singapore.
This brought to S$1.3 million ($929,000) the total amount of damages sought by Goh, former premier Lee Kuan Yew, and his son, deputy premier Lee Hsien Loong, in a libel suit against the Paris-based daily.
The two Lees had each sought S$400,000 in damages during a hearing Thursday on the case, stemming from an Aug. 2, 1994 opinion piece.
Lawyers for Singapore's three top leaders have told High Court judge Goh Joon Sang that the article implied that the junior Lee, 43, rose up the ranks not on his own merit but because of his 71- year-old father.
Lee Kuan Yew, who now holds the title of Senior Minister, served as premier for three decades until stepping down in 1990, when Goh, 54, took over.
Lawyer Harry Elias, presenting Goh's demand for damages, told the High Court on Friday that his client was deeply hurt by the IHT article.
He said awarding the sum sought by Goh would serve as a warning to the outside world that Singapore will not tolerate such allegations against its prime minister.
Among other things, the IHT article, extracts of which have been read out in court, said: "Dynastic politics is evident in 'Communist' China already, as in Singapore, despite official commitments to bureaucratic meritocracy."
Elias said the article embarrassed Goh before his cabinet colleagues.
He said the damages to be awarded by the court must measure up "to the hurt that has been caused," adding that to be accused of "aiding and abetting nepotism, corruption" in selecting the deputy premier "erodes everything" that Goh stands for.
Elias added: "We must show the public that if you take on the PM in the hallowed sanctity of what he stands for, then you must really point out to that award and say to the world: that is the quantum if you take us on in relation to what I stand for."
The trial, which is expected to go into next week, is to assess the level of damages for the trio. IHT has already apologized unreservedly for the article, and undertaken not to make further allegations "to the same or similar effect."
Singapore, a prosperous city-state where dissent is discouraged in favor of consensus and national stability, has had several legal brushes with foreign publications deemed to have criticized its political system.
Goh's demand for damages came as his war of words with a prominent U.S. press critic took a fresh twist.
William Safire, in a New York Times column carried yesterday by Singapore's leading daily The Straits Times, rejected a challenge to face Goh in a televised debate in Singapore on democracy and other issues.
Safire said he would rather face Lee Kuan Yew in a debate in Switzerland.
Goh had issued the challenge earlier this week after Safire, who had attacked Singapore in the past, called into a question a plan by the Massachusetts-based Williams College to confer academic honors on Goh.
Goh proposed a debate at the National University of Singapore with Safire and George Crane, a Williams College political scientist organizing a protest against giving the premier, a Williams alumnus, an honorary degree.
Safire, saying a debate in Singapore would be a "set-up," said his proposed debate with Lee should be held at the next World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, which both of them have addressed in the past.
Goh should first face off with Francis Seow, a dissident former Singapore solicitor-general now based in the United States, Safire said.
"We will reply in due course," Chan Heng Wing, press secretary to the prime minister, told AFP.