MM Lee: Who's restricting your freedom?

The New Paper 13 Jan 08;

HIS eyes may have been smiling, but the glint they held reflected a fierce passion for Singapore.

It took a question from a 23-year-old Singaporean Reuters reporter to light the fire MM Lee is famous for.

It is the same question that he has often fielded from Western reporters and it came near the end of the one-hour-15-minute dialogue session at Suntec City ConventionHall.

MM Lee had said he wanted Singapore to become a cultivated society like Italy and Austria in 10 to 15 years.

The Reuters reporter asked: 'How do you expect society to become cultivated given the restricted civil liberties?'

MM Lee fired back: 'Tell me, what are your limited civil liberties?'

The woman said freedom of speech and expression, for instance, 'need(ing) a licence to speak at Hong Lim Park'.

MM Lee said, to laughter from the audience: 'You just put your name, that'sall.'

Speakers must register at the Kreta Ayer Neighbourhood Police Post before they speak.

He asked her again for specific examples where she or her friends' freedom of expression was restricted.

She could not answer.

'What school did you go to?' he asked.

'Why does that matter?' she said indignantly.

'Was anyone suppressing your freedom in school?' MM asked.

She said she was sometimes told not to speak up. Again, MM Lee pressed her for specific examples. He added that a free press is not the answer to all of a country's development problems.

'Don't take what the Western media say about us as true.'