No place for political violence in Singapore

Jan. 12 | Koh Jie Kai / Senior Writer As with many other people, I was shocked to learn about Seng Han Thong’s injuries at the hands of an apparently mentally unstable attacker.  I was however, revolted to read some of the comments on the attack. There...

Singapore does uphold human rights’ norms

Dec. 4 | Koh Jie Kai / Senior Writer As a Ms Dell Butler noted in the Straits Times forum a few months ago, there has been plenty of defensiveness with respect to our long-standing coolness towards human rights, with Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew claiming that...

JBJ – a tribute and a response to PM’s letter

Oct. 7 | The following are two articles which TOC received in response to Mr JB Jeyaretnam’s death.The first, by Ho Cheow Seng, pays tribute to Mr JBJ. The second, by Koh Jie Kai, is in reply to the PM’s condolence message. By Ho Cheow Seng “From...

Tibet

Mar. 18 | By Koh Jie Kai It seems to me that the riots in Tibet are in many ways similar to the riots that erupted against Chinese communities in urban areas all over South East Asia over the past few hundred years. Anti- Chinese riots are not a new thing, and...

In response to MM Lee’s Washington Post article on Iraq

Mar. 12 | By Koh Jie Kai Once more, Minister Mentor Lee inflicts his wisdom upon the world – this time, telling America that it should not be pulling out of Iraq. Yet for all you cynics out there, don’t dismiss Mr Lee’s opinion as a vanity stunt....

Time to take a stand – an open letter to George Yeo

Sep. 26 | UPDATE (28 Sept): Jie Kai has informed TOC that Minister George Yeo has read the following Open Letter. TOC also understands that ASEAN ministers are in “intense discussions” about the situation in Burma. Dear Mr Yeo, The situation in Myanmar has...

Decriminalising homosexuality in Singapore

May. 3 | By Koh Jie Kai The purpose of this letter is to address two arguments which homophobes frequently make against decriminalising homosexuality in Singapore. Let’s take a typical example of a homophobic point of view, written by a Mr Jonathan Cheng...

Time to get tough on job discrimination (Part One)

Jan. 2 | This is the first part of a special feature on employment discrimination in Singapore. By Koh Jie Kai Employment discrimination is with us. On December 29th, Today reported that Frontline Technologies had posted an advertisement with JobStreet.com,...