David L. Chaplin II
Impunity Watch, Asia

SINGAPORE – 76-year-old British author was jailed on Tuesday for six weeks in Singapore for attacking the judiciary in a book criticizing the city-state’s death penalty.

Alan Shadrake was also fined £9,589 over his book “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore’s Justice in the Dock”, which included a profile of Singapore’s executioner who put about 1,000 men and women to death over 47 years.

Shadrack offered a last-minute apology which was dismissed as a ploy by the judge. He will have to serve another two weeks in jail if he fails to pay the fine designed to prevent him profiting from the book.

Convicted on Nov. 3 of scandalizing the court in his book, “Once a Jolly Hangman: Singapore Justice in the Dock,” would also be fined 26,371 Singapore dollars ($15,400), in an effort to send “a signal to those who hope to profit from controversy,” said High Court Judge Quentin Loh.

The judge said the author’s technique was to make “claims against a dissembling and selective background of truths and half-truths, and sometimes outright falsehoods.

Singapore’s judicial officials feared that passive readers would interpret Singapore’s government as lacking order and justice.

The case has stressed not just the use of capital punishment in Singapore, but the bigger issue of freedom of speech in a country where opposition is rare.

Human rights groups say the Singaporean authorities too often resort to the courts to silence their critics.

Showing no signs of staying quiet, Alan Shadrake, entered Singapore’s High Court building for his first hearing holding up two fingers in a “V for victory” salute.

“Freedom and democracy for Singapore,” he shouted, as he waited to walk through the security scanners.

The judgment was condemned by Human Rights Watch which said it was a “serious blow” and would have a “chilling effect” on anyone who has differences with the Singapore government.

The book contains interviews with human rights activists, lawyers and former police officers, as well as a profile of Darshan Singh, the former chief executioner at Singapore’s Changi Prison. It claims he executed around 1,000 men and women from 1959 until he retired in 2006.

US based Human Rights Watch and other rights groups had urged Singapore to exonerate the author.

Abner Koh, of the People’s Action Party, which has been in power since independence in 1965, said “certain restrictions are necessary to ensure harmonious living amongst different communities in Singapore”.

Singapore is not used to that kind of open defiance. This tiny state prides itself on being one of the most stable and prosperous nations in Asia.

BBC reports that, it is as if there is an unspoken but clearly understood deal between citizen and state: the system will look after you, as long as you do not question it.

For more information, please see:

Telegraph World News – British author Alan Shadrake jailed in Singapore – 16 November 2010

Wall Street Journal – Singapore Jails U.K. Author – 16 November 2010

BBC – UK author Shadrake jailed for six weeks in Singapore – 16 November 2010