 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2021) |
This is a list of Singaporean political dissidents .
| | This article needs additional citations for verification .(August 2021) |
This is a list of Singaporean political dissidents .
The politics of Singapore takes the form of a parliamentary representative democratic republic whereby the President of Singapore is the head of state, the Prime Minister of Singapore is the head of government, and of a multi-party system. Executive power is exercised by the Cabinet from the parliament, and to a lesser extent, the president. Cabinet has the general direction and control of the Government and is accountable to Parliament. There are three separate branches of government: the legislature, executive and judiciary abiding by the Westminster system.
Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, more commonly known as J. B. Jeyaretnam or JBJ, was a Singaporean politician and lawyer. Born in Jaffna in 1926, Jeyaretnam grew up in Malaya and Singapore before he read law in London and qualified as a barrister in 1951. Upon returning to Singapore, he worked in the legal service from 1952 to 1963 before setting up his own law firm in 1968. He entered politics in 1971 and became the secretary-general of the opposition Workers' Party. Thereafter, he contested in three general elections and two by-elections, but lost to candidates from the governing People's Action Party (PAP) in all of them.
The Workers' Party is a major centre-left political party in Singapore and is one of the three contemporary political parties represented in parliament, alongside the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) and the opposition Progress Singapore Party (PSP). It is currently the largest opposition party in parliament. It is also one of the oldest parties active in the country, having contested every parliamentary election since 1959. The WP is the only political party other than the ruling PAP with elected constituency MPs in parliament since 2011.
Lee Siew Choh was a Singaporean politician and medical doctor. Initially a member of the People's Action Party (PAP), he became a leader of the breakaway faction of Barisan Sosialis (BS) in 1961. After the BS merged with the Workers' Party (WP) in 1988, Lee stood as a WP candidate in the 1988 election and became Singapore's first Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) due to his best performance among the opposition candidates. He served as the NCMP from September 1988 to August 1991.
There are currently two types of elections in Singapore: parliamentary and presidential elections. According to the constitution of Singapore general elections for parliament must be conducted within 3 months of the dissolution of parliament, which has a maximum term of 5 years from the first sitting of parliament, and presidential elections are conducted every 6 years.
Chiam See Tong is a retired Singaporean politician who was secretary-general of the Singapore People's Party (SPP) between 1996 and 2019. He served as Member of Parliament for Potong Pasir SMC from 1984 and retained the seat throughout successive elections until 2011.
Chia Thye Poh is a Singaporean former political prisoner. Detained under the Internal Security Act of Singapore for allegedly conducting pro-communist activities against the government, he was imprisoned for 23 years without charge or trial and subsequently placed under conditions of house arrest for another nine years – in which he was first confined to the island of Sentosa and then subject to restrictions on his place of abode, employment, travel, and exercise of political rights.
A Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP) is a member of an opposition political party in Singapore who, according to the Constitution and Parliamentary Elections Act, is declared to have been elected a Member of Parliament (MP) without constituency representation, despite having lost in a general election, by virtue of having been one of the best-performing losers. The number of NCMPs is 12 less the number of opposition Members of Parliament (MPs) elected. NCMPs enjoy all of the privileges of ordinary Members of Parliament.
James Gomez is a Singaporean academic, politician and a member of the Singapore Democratic Party.
The literature of Singapore comprises a collection of literary works by Singaporeans. It is written chiefly in the country's four official languages: English, Malay, Standard Mandarin and Tamil.
Calvin Cheng Ern Lee is a Singaporean businessman and former Nominated Member of Parliament. Cheng is known for expressing controversial views on socio-political issues in Singapore. He began his business career in the modeling industry and expanded into event hosting, publishing, and educational technology.
Operation Spectrum, also known as the 1987 "Marxist Conspiracy", was the code name for a covert security operation that took place in Singapore on 21 May 1987. Sixteen people were arrested and detained without trial under Singapore's Internal Security Act (ISA) for their alleged involvement in "a Marxist conspiracy to subvert the existing social and political system in Singapore, using communist united front tactics, with a view to establishing a Marxist state." On 20 June 1987, six more people were arrested, bringing the total number of detainees to 22. The mostly English-educated group was a mix of Catholic lay workers, social workers, overseas-educated graduates, theatre practitioners and professionals.
Human rights in Singapore are codified in the Constitution of Singapore, which sets out the legal rights of its citizens. These rights are protected by the Constitution and include amendments and referendums. These rights have evolved significantly from the days since independence though the government in Singapore has broad powers to possibly limit citizens' rights or to inhibit political opposition. In 2018, Singapore was ranked 151st by Reporters Without Borders in the Worldwide Press Freedom Index. U.S.-based Freedom in the World scored Singapore 3 out of 7 for "political freedom", and 3 out of 7 for "civil liberties", with an overall ranking of "partly free" for the year 2015.
The Tan Chay Wa's tombstone trial was a sequence of unusual events regarding an inscribed tombstone of a political dissident, Tan Chay Wa, that sparked a court case in Singapore in 1983. His older brother Tan Chu Boon was arrested and charged on suspicion that he designed an elaborate but 'subversive' tombstone, which had engraved on it words glorifying the communist cause. The story of the case was later taken up in London by The Sunday Times a few months after the trial, making the case an internationally known issue.
The Reform Party is a political party in Singapore founded on 3 July 2008.
General elections were held in Singapore on 7 May 2011. President S. R. Nathan dissolved parliament on 19 April 2011 on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Voting is mandatory in Singapore and is based on the first-past-the-post system. Elections are conducted by the Elections Department, which is under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister’s Office. Nomination day was held on 27 April 2011, and for the second election in a row, the PAP did not officially return to power on nomination day, but it did return to power on the polling day. This election also marked the first and the only three-cornered fight since 2001 in Punggol East SMC before it increased to four-cornered fight on a by-election held two years later.
Kenneth Andrew Jeyaretnam is a Singaporean politician who has been the secretary-general of the opposition Reform Party since 2009. He is the elder son of Joshua Benjamin Jeyaretnam, a prominent opposition politician in Singapore who founded the Reform Party in 2008. A Cambridge graduate with a double first class honours degree in economics, Jeyaretnam started his career in the financial sector and worked at Wardley, Continental Bank, Banque Indosuez and Nomura International before becoming a hedge fund manager. He took up a more active role in politics after his father's death in 2008 and started leading the Reform Party. Since then, he has contested in three general elections and one by-election in 2013, but did not win any of them.
The Singaporean by-election of 1967 was triggered by the final batch of mass resignations from Barisan Sosialis (BS)'s elected Members of Parliament who heeded to Lim Huan Boon's call on the grounds that Singapore's independence was "phony" because no discussion of Singapore's separation matter was made in the legislature. The final walkout of BS members were Koo Young, Ms Loh Miaw Gong, Ong Lian Teng, Poh Ber Liak and Tan Cheng Tong and translates into five vacant constituencies namely, Bukit Panjang, Havelock, Jalan Kayu, Tampines and Thomson. As a result, the by election was held on 7 March 1967 with the nomination day set on 24 February 1967. Despite 5 vacant constituency are up for grabs, only Thomson was contested by 2 independent candidates on top of another candidate from the People's Action Party (PAP) and the PAP wins the other four constituencies by walkover.
Amos Yee Pang Sang, also known as just Amos Yee, is a convicted Singaporean-born sex offender, blogger, former YouTuber and child actor. Yee is currently serving six years' imprisonment in the United States for child pornography charges.
The Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Act 2021, or Fica, is a statute of the Parliament of Singapore. Enacted in 2021, it seeks to "protect the public interest by counteracting acts of foreign interference". The Bill was introduced on 13 September 2021 and passed on 4 October 2021.