Talk:Singapore

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Biased tag required

The article is biased. It is inappropriate to describe singapore as a democracy. I really think that Singapore is Authoritarian.

What he said^

Those for Singapore as an Authoritarian Government:

Freakofnurture

Rocketqueen

IbrahimFaisal

Jbc01

Kasreyn

Anome

talk

Those for Singapore as a Parliamentary Republic:

Capital punishment arguments

The statement here needs clarification or citation:

However, defenders argue that Singapore is one of the few countries that does occasionally (most recently in 2003) reveal its execution rate. Some countries which may have higher execution rates are overlooked by Amnesty because they keep their execution records a state secret.

I believe most countries have open courts system and thus the execution rates can always be computed. Singapore's per capita rate fluctuates significantly, partly because the number of executions in Singapore is relatively small and partly because of the drug trades. In the period surveyed by AI, its per capita rate is highest among the countries examined. In recent years, Saudi's rate is much higher. Nonetheless, the main argument used by "defenders" is not about the ranking, but that there is no universal consensus on the issue of capital punishment and that the country has the sovereign right to determine the punishment for serious crimes. --Vsion 14:12, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Why is it necessary to state the Singapore government's "response" in the Wiki article as you have done? Their response is essentially the same response that all death penalty governments employ (the issue of sovereignty). I think the AI statistic should be presented at face value, without the blithe commentary. The article should present facts, not opinions of the Singapore government. -- Xaqua 03:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If you are refering to this edit [1], I was just replacing a misleading and unsourced sentence with one that is accurate and referenced. --Vsion 03:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Courts

These statements are also strange:

Several former and present members of the opposition, including Francis Seow, J.B. Jeyaretnam and Chee Soon Juan perceive the Singaporean courts as favourable towards the government and the PAP due to a lack of separation of powers. [12] There are however three cases in which opposition leader Chiam See Tong sued PAP members for defamation and sucessfully obtained an out-of-court settlement. [13]

Regarding these two statements, the first states that the opposition perceives courts as biased. The second then attempts to rebut the first by giving a counterexample, but a small out-of-court settlement by weak PAP underlings is a bad counterexample. We should clarify this by adding that no court case has actually ever been ruled (by a judge) in favor of any opposition member. This is much more significant to readers than the minor example of Chiam See Tong's out-of-court settlement and more accurately reflects the true state of the courts in Singapore. -- Xaqua 03:09, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Similary, my edit here [2] was to clarify and add source, and it stopped an edit war. I'm not sure about the accuracy of the statement that "no court case has actually ever been ruled (by a judge) in favor of any opposition member". --Vsion 03:46, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

If anyone is aware of a single court case where an opposition member won a judgement (in the Singapore courts) against a PAP member, please let us know. I couldn't find any. If there hasn't been a single case in the entire decades-long history of modern Singapore, then this is significant and should be added to qualify the statement about Chiam's "settlement". As it stands, the article seems to take a biased position that, though the opposition PERCEIVES the courts to be biased, this is obviously not the case because once, a long time ago, Chiam got a tiny out-of-court settlement from some PAP juniors. While we may disagree on the actual amount of bias in Singapore courts, we should be careful about the way these statements are worded. Xaqua 07:25, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I replace "There are however ..." with "Nonetheless, there are ...". This was my fault, I keep forgeting the proper use of "however". --Vsion 01:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

After waiting for a week, no one has offered any example of a PAP member losing a defamation case in court. This is because there aren't any. Rather than merely state that the opposition perceives the Singapore courts to be biased, including the statement that no PAP member has ever lost in court provides more useful, factual information to readers, rather than just the OPINION of the opposition. This statement is further clarified by the addition of Chiam's out-of-court settlement against a few PAP juniors. Xaqua 04:06, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

government-invented demographics

The classification of the four "races" is not a neutral classification, nor does it have any scientific backing. For example, the term "Chinese" is highly ambiguous, because it's not specifically "Han Chinese"...there are many ethnicities within India, and thus immigrants from it. Conflating them is merely a propaganda scheme. Neither is "Eurasian" a race. Government policy is run as such, but Wikipedia should not say that these classifications are how Singaporean demographics ae really set up. In fact this classification system has many critics. John Riemann Soong 10:44, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The Singapore government categorises "Eurasian" as a race? --- Hong Qi Gong 15:23, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

In more recent times, it tends to be CMIO - Chinese, Malay, Indian and Others in place of the word "Eurasian".--Huaiwei 17:25, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Does "Others" just define Eurasians or does it include everybody that is not Chinese, Malay, or Indian? --- Hong Qi Gong 20:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

The later.--Huaiwei 08:14, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Pardon ... which sentence(s) in the article is this issue about? --Vsion 22:24, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Singapore courtesy ranking

I remember reading in a newspaper about Singapore ranking poorly in a courtesy survey. Could someone help me find a reference? They could then put it in the article, or let me insert it myself. --J.L.W.S. The Special One 06:38, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't have it; but please add such rankings in International rankings of Singapore instead of here, as per Wikipedia:WikiProject Countries and FAC precedences. Placing such rankings in Country X's article generates lots of unnecessary discussion over the accuracy and appropriateness of the ranking criteria and the agenda of ranking agencies. The table of ranking currently in the article should probably be moved to International rankings of Singapore as well. --Vsion 21:12, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

I saw the table of rankings, and that's why I thought of adding the results there. If I'm not wrong, the survey was conducted by Reader's Digest. Besides, I'm not sure if we want to tell the whole world how bad-mannered we Singaporeans are. (But in the interests of NPOV, we must) --J.L.W.S. The Special One 04:59, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

If it is informative and accurate, then the survey result should be of interest (and I'm a rank-cruft myself). However the length of Singapore article already exceeds the guideline, so we try not to clutter too much here. The article International rankings of Singapore is a more suitable place for these international ranking trivia, and it was in fact created from Singapore following a peer review suggestion. --Vsion 05:34, 2 August 2006 (UTC)