Singapore premier, state founder get compensation from magazine

Nov 18, 2009, 3:44 GMT

   Singapore - The soon-to-be-closed magazine Far Eastern Economic Review has agreed to pay Singapore's founder Lee Kuan Yew and his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong several hundred thousand dollars in damages for defamation, a media report said Wednesday.

   In October, the city-state's Court of Appeal confirmed a verdict from September 2008 that a story by the magazine about Singapore's opposition party leader Chee Soon Juan in 2006 improperly associated both Lees with corruption.

   In a consent order, the magazine agreed to pay the Lees a total of 405,000 Singapore dollars (292,000 US dollars), the Straits Times newspaper reported.

   'Having waged this battle for press freedom to Singapore's highest court, we are now resolving this case rather than engaging in a protracted damages process,' it quoted a spokesman for the magazine's publisher, Dow Jones and Co, as saying.

   Dow Jones had earlier announced that it would close the magazine in December due to unsustainable losses in advertising revenue and readership.

   Singapore's leaders have sued several international publications for defamation and won hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, arguing that they have to protect their reputations.

   In a speech in October, Law Minister K Shanmugam defended Singapore against continued criticism for lack of press freedom, as the city-state is ranked low by organizations like Reporters without Borders and Freedom House.

   The minister questioned the objectivity of the rankings, noting that Singapore's approach was to 'ignore the criticisms which make no sense' and 'continue to do better.'

   'If the press cross the line from attacking our policies and make allegations of fact against someone, then there will be a libel suit, and the factual accusation must be proven,' Shanmugam said.

   'The press are not used to this anywhere else in the world,' he said, 'and of course it will be no surprise, they don't like it a bit.

   'So every lawsuit is met with the same reaction: we are out to silence the press,' the minister added.