Singaporeans find political voice on talk radio

By Jason Szep

SINGAPORE, June 24 (Reuters) - A posting on a police notice board beside Singapore's "Speakers' Corner" sums up the wealthy island's struggle to loosen controls on political speech.

"There are no speakers for today," it reads.

The grassy city park is empty most days, says a policeman nearby. "It's been a steady decline," he says. This year only 33 people registered to speak in the free-speech designated corner, a fraction of the 400 in a month when it opened in 2000.

But as "Speakers' Corner" loses popularity - entangled in rules that force participants to register with police, speak only during the day and not to mention race or religion - a new avenue of personal expression and political speech is opening up: radio.

Talk-back radio in Singapore, once dominated by housewives and retirees chatting on mundane topics, is growing political.

Though owned by the government, Singapore's only all-news station FM 93.8 is airing once-taboo subjects on its morning talk-back show, including comments on whether ministers are paid too much and if state censorship has gone too far.

"I started noticing it only in the last year or so - since a controversy over public transport fees when people became angry when fees went up. They put it on air and everyone rang up and talked about it," said political commentator Seah Chiang Nee.

Public expression is a delicate act in Singapore. Defamation suits have decimated the political opposition, brought by senior government figures including Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew.

Nearly all media are pro-government, and state-owned Media Corp runs nearly all the radio and six of eight TV channels.

"What we would definitely stay clear of is any topic likely to elicit uninformed viewpoints that offend racial or religious sensitivities or lead to the broadcast of defamatory remarks about specific organisations or persons," said Tan Siew Ping, chief editor of Media Corp Radio, which runs the talk-back show.

"There's no point in choosing a topic where you will only get a certain type of listeners to call up," she added.

OUT OF BOUNDS

On one recent show, the host asked listeners if they felt a government "feedback" effort to gather opinion was working. Callers jammed the phone lines.

"We are always afraid that what we speak might come back to us," said a listener named Richard. Another, identifying himself as David, asked: "Can we allow sensitive topics to be discussed?"

One caller, Ken, said the government should do away with so-called "out of bounds" markers on what cannot be publicly discussed. "Why must we put such guidelines...when we really want to have a more diverse society?" he said.

"The government can really be much more encompassing to be able to take all sorts of opinions, and really grow naturally as a real democratic society," he added.

Singapore's government has said a high degree of control over public debate and the media is needed to maintain law and order. Most citizens have happily complied, satisfied by decades of prosperity unrivalled in often turbulent Southeast Asia.

But critics say those controls are stifling policy debate and creative freedoms.

Recognising this, the government has lightened up in recent years, opening "Speakers' Corner", allowing pubs to stay open for 24 hours, partially ending a 12-year ban on chewing gum and relaxing some censorship rules.

LIMITS

But debate simmers over what can be said and by whom.

In April a government "Remaking Singapore" panel set up to nourish the kind of creative thinking critical to compete in a global economy rejected a proposal to define "out of bounds markers" in politics that often inhibit sensitive discussions.

Even Washington weighed into the debate.

The U.S. State Department said in its an annual report on human rights worldwide in February that Singapore "continued to restrict significantly freedom of speech and freedom of the press, as well as to limit other civil and political rights".

But it cited some positive developments, including a perception among journalists of more tolerance in the government's unwritten list of topics considered "out of bounds".

Chua Beng Huat of the National University of Singapore said there remained obvious limits to what goes on-air.

"They are not talking about when is Lee Kuan Yew going to retire," said Chua, referring to a subject often discussed in coffee shops or in taxis but rarely voiced in the local media.

Lee, modern Singapore's founding father and current senior minister, said on his 80th birthday in September he would stay in politics as long as he was fit, even with his son, Lee Hsien Loong, becoming premier this year - stoking debate among some analysts about the concentration of power in the Lee family.

Singapore's Straits Times newspaper, whose editor must be approved by the government, sometimes bristles with critical views in its forum pages. But unlike the newspaper where writers must provide full names, talk-back callers enjoy a degree of anonymity while reaching a mainstream audience.

"There are also Internet chat sites," said Seah. "But some of them are really really the other extreme - a lot of very immature, angry people just letting go. It's not reasoned argument, or anything like that. It's different from radio."

Tan said about half the listeners of her talk-back programme are "professionals, managers and executives", adding that MediaCorp operates with a slight time delay sparingly used to keep abusive comments off the airwaves.

(Article no longer on reuters.com)