In Singapore, Family Feud Deepens Over Facebook Posts
A week later, the attorney general’s office sent Mr. Li a strongly worded letter, signed by Francis Ng, a senior state counsel, saying the post was "an egregious and baseless attack on the Singapore judiciary and constitutes an offense of contempt of court." The attorney general’s office asked
that Mr. Li "purge the contempt" by deleting the post, sign the letter of apology and post it on his Facebook page.
4, 2017
BANGKOK, Thailand — Singapore’s government has been trying for two weeks to get the Harvard University economist Li Shengwu, a grandson of Singapore’s founder, Lee Kuan Yew, to apologize for comments he made in a private Facebook post
that were seen as critical of the country’s leadership.
But on Friday, Mr. Li declined to give in to the demands of the government, which is led
by his uncle, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and refused to sign a letter of apology.
In rejecting demands that he apologize, Mr. Li explained on Friday in a new Facebook post, this one public,
that his criticism of Singapore for suppressing press freedom was aimed at the government, not at the courts.
In the Facebook post last month viewable only to friends, Mr. Li referred to this practice
and included a link to a 2010 commentary in The New York Times on the government’s use of the law to limit criticism.
"Any criticism I made is of the Singapore government’s litigious nature, and its use of legal rules and actions to stifle the free press." The sparring comes as Singapore’s most prominent family has been battling over Mr. Lee’s wish
that the family home where he lived for nearly 70 years be demolished after his death.