Far Eastern Economic Review - Censorship By Governments

Censorship By Governments

In late 1970s, Ho Kwon Ping, the Review's Singapore correspondent, was accused of endangering national security and fined $3,000. Lee Kuan Yew later charged FEER editor, Mr. Derek Davies, of participating in "a diabolical international Communist plot" to poison relations between Singapore and neighbouring Malaysia.

In the 1980s Lee banned the Review in Singapore after it published an article about the detention of Roman Catholic church workers.

The April 4, 2002 issue of FEER was banned in Bangladesh because its cover story, "Bangladesh: Cocoon of Terror", described the country as besieged by "Islamic fundamentalism, religious intolerance, militant Muslim groups with links to international terrorist groups."

In China the Review's correspondent, Serge Ivanovitch Kost, was arrested during the Cultural Revolution and sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment. He later emigrated to Australia.

In 2006, after the publication of an article of an interview with Dr. Chee Soon Juan, party leader of the Singapore Democratic Party, on Singapore's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his father and minister mentor, Lee Kuan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew and Lee Hsien Loong both sued the publication for defamation, alleging the magazine had suggested they were corrupt. The Singapore government banned the sale and distribution of the journal. In 2007, during the International Bar Association's Rule of Law symposium, then-Deputy Prime Minister, S. Jayakumar, states that FEER did not satisfy regulations for foreign publications in Singapore such as appointing a representative to accept service of any notice or legal process, and submitting a security deposit. The lack of compliance to the regulations led to FEER not being able to circulate its publication in Singapore and was not due to the legal suit.

On September 24, 2008, the High Court of Singapore, in a summary judgment by Justice Woo Bih Li, ruled that the Far Eastern Economic Review and Hugo Restall, its editor, defamed Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in its October 2006 article, "Singapore's 'Martyr', Chee Soon Juan". FEER appealed but lost the case when the Court of Appeal ruled in October, 2009 that the Far Eastern Economic Review did defame the country's founder Lee Kuan Yew and his son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.