Good work keep it up!

Something the late JBJ would be proud of.

Why is there not an event to highlght infos on civil and political rights?
Sad that TOC is not keen on that issue

Why is there not an event to highlght infos on civil and political rights? Sad that TOC is not keen on that issue – Khai (#3)

Even TOC must tread the thin line between critical of government and anti-government. TOC is making great strides in the right direction though nevertheless.

To ensure more people attend, the organizers need to assure people that it is a legal activity which I believe it is.

There is potentially many to attend :
1. Retirees,
2. Retrenched
3. students
4. housewives
5. disenfranchised

Without civil or political rights,we are not a true believer of human right.We are either free or not free.There is no such thing as half-free or semi-free..

I can’t bring myself to celebrate 60 years of human rights. I haven’t even experienced human rights 1st hand before in my life as a Singapore citizen. Hopefully, that will change. My citizenship, that is. Unless things take a turn for the better & Singapore takes on a human-oriented leadership style that gives power & humane rights to the people.

I think it would be depressing for me if I were to go to this party. Sadly, it’s like celebrating something that we don’t have here. It’d make me really jealous of countries that are truely celebrating the event.

What is a human right? In America, the so called cahampion of rights, you have the right to live, but also the right to live in fear since everyone has the right to bear arms (weapons).

I think public education and awareness on human rights has been postphoned for way too long in Singapore.
I am deeply saddened by the suicide of 15 year old teenager Tan Wen Yi (see http://mrwangsaysso.blogspot.com/). Wen Yi jumped off his 11-storey apartment in-front of his parents just to make a point – ‘as a final feat of rebellion’ against his parents and the school. Wen Yi epitomizes what we as Citizens are facing: pressures exerted upon us and our children to ‘perform’ and ‘excel’ regardless of whether we want it, like it or not. And we find ourselves accomodating to these pressures – exerted by our social institutions like the education, economic and family systems under the rubric of ‘pragmatism’ ritualized and consecrated by the powers-that-be. We are not sacrificial offerings at the altar of ‘meritocracy’ which mainly serves to renew and reinforce its own ranks of the ‘elite’. We need to be able to ’speak to’, ’speak with’ rather than ’speak up’, and that simply is what ‘human rights’ mean to me. If Wen Yi had been allowed to be heard – by his family and school then I believe his untimely death could have been prevented.
We as Citizens, therefore cannot be silenced by power such as the kind – sophisticated & clinical wielded by Thio Li-ann (at a recent ARI round-table on ‘human rights’) who had stumped me with ‘would you prefer housing or the rights to housing’. I can almost hear Nik Aziz the ustaz, MB of Kelantan and spiritual leader of PAS snorting in agreement when he had also recently stumped Malaysians by telling them not to question the Fatwa Council acting under the authority of god.
As a Singaporean, I do not profess my faith in unquestionable, divine-like powers who can wield, manipulate, monopolize ‘pragmatism’ and tolerate human sacrifices. I should be empowered to speak to them.

Its SAD that singaporeans need to be taught what human rights is about.