Via Singabloodypore, the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) have been ordered to remove podcasts from the party website.:

SINGAPORE : The Returning Officer for the General Election has ordered the Singapore Democratic Party to take down audio files and podcasts from its website.

The Elections Department says the podcast contravenes the Parliamentary Elections (Election Advertising) Regulations.

It says those found guilty are liable for a fine of up to S$1,000 or imprisonment of up to 12 months, or both.

Dr Chee, the SDP’s Secretary-General, had recorded a podcast message and posted it on the party’s website two days ago.

The SDP’s website cannot be considered a blog, and the audio files on its site are not really podcasts. Nevertheless the PAP is making good on its threat to squash political speech in Singapore. The SDP is also making good on its attempt to be the most prosecuted political party is Southeast Asia.

In a related matter, the PBS MediaShift site takes a decent look at political speech in Singapore, including this money quote from Yawning Bread (yawningbread.org).:

“The freedom available to Singaporeans is quite wide,” Au told me via email. “However, there is a climate of fear that the government can clamp down anytime. There have actually been very few instances of arbitrary clamping down, but the fear persists, and thus a lot of people in Singapore, including bloggers, self-censor to some extent. With the passage of time, there is increasing confidence that freedom of speech on the Internet is pretty wide. The more years that pass without incident, the more confidence people gain.”

The article also cites AsiaPundit, somewhat unexpectedly but without causing any offense.

AP would like to clarify that his mention of the word ‘nepotism’ was done to illustrate an example of one of Singapore’s ‘out-of-bounds’ markers and that he was in no way implying that such a thing exists in the Lion City.

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