Innocence Lost

The film maker's home was raided, her computers seized and her person dragged into a police station like a common criminal. But now the Attorney General's Chambers (AGC) have, after a long review at great expense to the taxpayers, determined that her perceived transgression does not merit a court prosecution. Instead, the public prosecutors has decided that a letter of warning "would suffice in her case".

Her case was a matter of producing documentary videos highlighting the allegations of police brutality aired by two Chinese national bus drivers involved in Singapore's first industrial strike in 26 years. The 28 January blog post title featuring the charges, "I Have Ways To Make You Confess", may be a tad provocative, but truth is always an attention getter when it cuts through the fog of official agenda. The AGC was not acting out of admission of judicial overkill, but hinted darkly at vindictive convictions. Among the factors considered in their deliberations, said the AGC, was the guilty plea of the bus drivers. In other words, if the strikers had refused to bow down to the system, the film maker might not have been let off "so easily". Shylock would demanded have his pound of flesh.

So did the Chinese nationals plead guilty so that an innocent party need not be keel hauled for being sympathetic to their cause?

"Killing the Chickens, to Scare the Monkeys" is a 2011 short film directed by Jens Assur. Set in the People's Republic of China, it consists of nine scenes where national politics and strategy unleashed unforeseen consequences on a young teacher. And there's the Chinese proverb that holds that it’s smarter to punish or do away with a lesser animal (a chicken) as a lesson to a higher or more important one (a monkey) that you can’t afford to get rid of. Hopefully, the monkey will take the hint and fall into line.

The law makers are using the episode to warn the public, "In appropriate instances, AGC will not hesitate to take firm  action... to protect the integrity of the judiciary's role in determining the facts". Expanding, the AGC spokesman added that the public can criticise judicial decisions "only after these have been given." Talk about locking the barn doors after the horse has bolted. That may work for those who subscribe to the wayang of the ongoing charade, but others are mindful of the quote attributed to Edmund Burke, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men should do nothing.”