Free Republic

Four ex-SMRT bus drivers have been jailed in Singapore for their part in last November’s strike. Wang Xianjie, Gao Yue Qiang and Liu Xiangying were sentenced to six weeks in prison, while He Junling was sentenced to seven weeks. On top of organising and participating in the strike, he had also posted on social media network Baidu encouraging others to join in. All four had pleaded guilty in court. Choo Zheng Xi, lawyer for He Junling, presented a mitigation plea, saying, “It was never Jun Ling’s intention to startle or alarm the public, nor was it a calculated plan of...

The 1st Amendment has been getting a workout in recent weeks on two college campuses--the University of Florida and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill--where students are learning that free speech is a messy business. The two cases, one involving a columnist at North Carolina and the other a political cartoonist at Florida, have inflamed minority groups--Muslims and blacks, respectively--provoking protests and debate. That's the good news insofar as protest and debate are the currency of free speech. <SNIP> Exhibit A is Jillian Bandes, a former columnist for North Carolina's The Daily Tar Heel. Her column, which was...

Amid all the admiration and fear of China's emergence as a modern industrial power, it is easy to forget how old fashioned are the country's politics. China may have embraced capitalism, globalisation and free trade, but its 1.3bn inhabitants are still ruled by a secretive Communist dictatorship. There are two related reasons for remembering this today. First, June 4 is the anniversary of the day in 1989 when party leaders launched a violent assault on the pro-democracy movement centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square, killing hundreds of young protesters. Second, the party has recently begun a new campaign against freedom of...