Can you blow a whistle?

So Nair got jailed 3 months for insulting a judge and "scandalising the administration of justice in Singapore".

Nair's defence was - it's true, "the judge Belinda Ang was throughout prostituting herself during the entire proceedings, by being nothing more than an employee of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his son and carrying out their orders".

The verdict - based on the fact that Nair said something against the court, not exactly that it was proven to be untrue. So we come to my next question, what happens if you actually think that some judge is corrupt and at least want some third party to investigate. Should you get jailed for accusing someone of corruption? I'm not sure.

But this is what Justice Kan has to say about free speech.

"The rights of freedom of speech and expression are qualified and...do not entitle you to insult Justice Ang in the way that you have done,' said Justice Kan.

So it seems that the courts understand the meaning of freedom in quite a different way. Yet, to say that freedom must be "qualified" and restrained, is to contradict what it means to be free. This makes perfect sense for a government wishing to stay in power though - keep criticism at a bare minimum and wash not your dirty linen in public.

On a side note, the article by AG Walter Woon in response to Dr Lee Wee Ling's letters regarding the case of Tang Wee Sung trying to buy a kidney made a statement which somewhat resembles my seemingly incompetent history teacher.

"Yet it is contended that he should have been let off because he was a desperately poor man trying to save his family (an unproven assertion). "

Way to go AG Woon. When someone doesn't bother to throw statistics in your face because she is trying to show a basic respect for your ability to make simple deductions, you brush the point aside and refuse to acknowledge it by going, "oh you can't prove that".