Dear friends, I published an Op-ed on Yahoo! today about the arrest of a Singaporean cartoonist last week. It’s depressing that the authorities continue to resort to harsh action to suppress commentary they dislike. Click here to read the article on Yahoo!

Or I have reproduced it below:

In order for Singaporean society to deal with race, religion and other sensitive issues in a mature way, they have to be discussed and debated publicly, not suppressed. Singapore needs to learn to talk honestly about race.

In that light, the most disturbing thing about the arrest last week of Leslie Chew, a Singaporean cartoonist, is that he appears to have been targeted for asking, through his cartoons, a very pertinent question: is there institutionalised discrimination against Malays in Singapore? Continue reading “Talking honestly about race”