SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The outgoing U.S. envoy to Singapore criticised the city-state's limits on political expression, saying governments will pay an increasing price for failing to give citizens freedom of choice and expression.
U.S. Ambassador Franklin L. Lavin said it was surprising to find what he called constraints on discussions given Singapore's strong international links.
"In this era of Weblogs and Webcams, how much sense does it make to limit political expression?" Lavin told an audience at his farewell dinner on Tuesday. The speech was made available on the U.S. embassy's Web site.
In August, police ordered a 36-year-old filmmaker to surrender equipment used to make a documentary on opposition figure Chee Soon Juan. A student on a state scholarship shut down his personal Web site in May after a government agency threatened a libel suit for his online comments.
On Friday, Singapore jailed two men for posting racist comments aimed at the country's ethnic Malay community, who are mainly Muslim, on the Internet.
"Remaking (Singapore's) economy is, in a sense, the easy decision. Shaping a political system to reflect the needs and aspirations of its citizens is more difficult and more sensitive," he added.
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong last week ruled out adopting a Western liberal democracy with a multi-party system in the next 20 years, saying that it was unsuitable for the country.
Lavin, whose four-year tenure saw the conclusion of a U.S.-Singapore free-trade agreement and a deepening of security ties, takes up a new post in Washington as undersecretary for international trade at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
A parliamentary republic with elections held at regular, constitutionally mandated intervals, Singapore has been dominated by the People's Action Party (PAP) since independence in 1965.
Opposition politicians, who hold only two of the 84 seats in parliament, have long complained that frequent defamation suits by PAP officials have stifled dissent -- a view echoed by a 2004 U.S. State Department report on Singapore.
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