This my defense submission to be filed at subordinate court today, for the 2nd of the 8 charges faced by Dr. CSJ & myself, Dr. CSJ is filing his own submission also on today:
IN THE SUBORDINATE COURT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SINGAPORE
PS NO . 733/06 & others )
YAP KENG HO
VS
PUBLIC PROSECUTOR
SUMISSION OF DEFENSE
To the Honourable the Judges of the Subordinate Court of Singapore.
The submission of YAP KENG HO
Showeth as follows : -
1.The ground of my defense is I was conducting legitimate Election Activity for Singapore Democratic Party SDP as lawful Election Agent under Chapter 218 Parliamentary Election Act, appointed by Singapore Democratic Party and declared under Section 62 for General Election 2006 which polling was held on 6.May.2006.
2.The alleged speech took place within the Sembawang GRC contested by Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), only just days from the nomination day which fell on 27.April.2006. In the same period very intensified political activities of all forms were conducted by all ruling and opposition parties, which are all intensively covered by the local and foreign media.
3.The General Election has absolutely nothing to do with public entertainment. It is fully legitimate and lawful political activity conducted by a contesting political party. The charge under Public Entertainment and Meetings Act is entirely inappropriate.
4.As a lawful Election Agent, the defendant have absolutely no necessity to break any law, nor have any intention, nor had acted in a way exceeding the normal boundary of Election Activities. On 8th April 2006, the activity at Woodlands MRT Station was to sell Singapore Democratic Party's publications in particular The New Democrats and books written and published by Dr. Chee Soon Juan. The purpose is to let the Electors read about the political issues from the publications sold, and to let the Electors make financial support to the SDP's campaign by paying for these publications on sale. The defendant with the other SDP people worked together as a team to lawfully conduct this Election Activity is the said way, and as shown by the trial's evidence.
5.As shown by the evidence, the Election Activity as conducted in a noisy and busy MRT station, with crowds consisting of Electors from Sambawang GRC moving and commuting through. The open area is wide and SDP needed a team of a dozen people to cover the area, selling to large number of Electors from Sembawang GRC these publications. It is necessary to coordinate and control the activity through announcements using loud speaker.
6.As shown by evidence, the crowd in the area are in no way attending any rally, but as just essentially MRT Commuters passing through the opened area, they stop only briefly to observe and hundreds have purchased the SDP's publication and then left to their own destinations.
7.At no time, the SDP had asked the Electors to stay nor to listen to any speeches. At no time had the crowd turned into a rally audience. At no time did the sales announcements made by the defendant had become a rally speech. As shown by the evidence.
8.The evidence clearly shown that defendant's announcement only lasted less then 3 minutes, within a lawful Election Activity which took place for hours, in which hundreds of copies of publications were sold. In this 3 minutes the announcements was paused 3 times, including interruptions and switching languages or dialects.
9.Pauses or stoppages: Transcriber's Note #1 “The Speaker B (not in view) suddently stops talking for some moments. The Speaker B then switches to Mandarin when he starts speaking again.” Transcriber's Note #3 “At this Juncture, Speaker B is seen enguaged in conversation apparently with his party members. In the background, a lady's voice is heard telling someone in Mandarin language that a person wish to buy many copies. However, the lady's voice fades away and Speaker A then takes over the microphone to speak in English.” in such that the switches of language / dialect and stoppages are in contrary against any normal speech, which other candidates and party Secretary General etc would have avoided at all cost to cause disruptions. These interruptions clearly illustrated the true announcement nature of the alleged speech.
10.The first interruption period or pause was about 10 seconds. Which is after less than a minute of Cantonese dialect announcement, which essentially announced that over 300 copies had been sold, and currently only about 40 copies are remaining to be sold. And The New Democrats is sold at S$2 per copy available in both Chinese & English prints.
11.The second Interruption is evidenced in the audio, that it was clearly paused for few second while the camera was pointing towards the ground, (time mark 16:09:57). The announcement made in Mandarin starting 16:09:33 for about 20 seconds were merely announcing that another 25 copies (out of the 40 announced a minute ago) had been sold and there is now fewer copies remaining to be sold.
12.The 3rd interruption caused defendant's announcement to stop entirely and had not resumed. In that duration, of about one and half minute, the defendant promoted the sale by introducing an article published inside the New Democrat which revealed a drug scandal involving tax payers' funds, the introduction nature was clear, because this brief introduction only announced that The New Democrats printed such an article, and announcement itself is too brief to tell anyone what is the scandal about. And most importantly, the final 2 sentences in this one and half minute announcement said “The Democratic Party's newsletter has also reported it. To know in more detail, come and buy a copy. Right Now, we are going to sell out all our copies soon. At two dollars a copy, there are Chinese and English versions.” The sales introduction led to appealing to the Electors to buy at S$2 per copy and read about the introduced scandal.
13.The article introducing the scandal is printed in The New Democrats in both Chinese & English, as shown in the trial by witnesses and defense's exhibit (copy of The New Democrats' actual print), had been verified by Mandarin translator of CID. The articles in 2 languages each occupying nearly a full page of the print, and it would require at least an hour if these contents were to be read out by defendant. This is clearly shown by the exhibit D1, and the defendant had clearly only made one and a half minute introduction about this content printed in the publication, which the defendant is lawfully selling as an Election Agent under Chapter 218, for the purpose of raising Election Campaign Funds, and letting Electors of Sambawang GRC show their support, as well as highlighting the published political issues that Electors should read about.
14.There is no further announcement by the defendant because The New Democrats had been all sold out, and the sales activity for the election had ended. If it was a speech as alleged, the defendant can go on and speak for the rest of the daylight as MRT Commuters and Electors were still plenty in the opened area. The defendant didn't continue the announcements nor, speak nor interacted with the public after all the copies of The New Democrats were sold out. The Singapore Democratic Party just packed up and left after there is no more copies of The New Democrats for sale. This action clearly showed that the purpose of that Election Activity on 8th April 2006 at Woodlands MRT was to sell The New Democrats at S$2 per copies, and more than 300 copies were sold as the evidence clearly proved beyond doubt. It wasn't a rally speech activity, because 1. the duration was too short; 2. the MRT station was too noisy for purpose of speech; 3. The crowd won't stay there long enough to listen sufficiently to cover any political subject; 4. that the Electors had only very brief moments to observe and purchase; 5. the announcements only made to interest the Electors to make their purchase; 6. the interruptions and switching of languages / dialects wouldn't let Electors understand the contents as a speech covering any political subject; 7a. Most of the contents were the progress of sales; 7b. the sales price $2 per copy; 7c. the languages (Chinese & English were printed); 7d. the interesting scandals printed inside.
15.There are no other contents in defendant's announcements. All the announcements were directly related to The New Democrats which was being sold lawfully, under Chapter 218 for General Election 2006, as a lawfully appointed Election Agent.
16.For a lawful Election Agent to conduct hours of sales activity in a large areas full of commuters, 3 minutes of announcements with so many interruptions and stoppages, can not be regarded as a speech.
17.Excluding the interruptions and pauses, the net duration of the announcements were only about 2 minutes. Which is very little for a lawful Election Agent to conduct sales of Political Party Publication as a part of Election Activity. Such announcements should not be regarded as Public Entertainment at all. The announcements are just important and necessary parts of the activities held on that day, to fulfill the lawful purposes of Election.
18.The charges were brought against the defendant full of political motivations. 1. Firstly due to the election being contested. 2. Secondly, due to the Political Law suits filed by Lee Kuan Yew & Lee Hsien Loong against SDP regarding NKF article inside this particular print of The New Democrat, which was sold by defendant in large quantity during the Election period. 3. due to very awful scandals exposed in The New Democrats such as drug involvement of tax payers' funds and Minister's Salaries. 4. The PM openly said that he is to FIX THE OPPOSITION after the election. 5. There was a full blast media campaign smearing the SDP during the election. 6. The NKF scandal published in The New Democrats is a notorious corruption crime which provoked massive public anger against the ruling party.
19.The charge brought against the defendant, seeks to disqualify defendant to stand for election, just like it was used many times before against opponents of the ruling party.
20.AGC as a state attorney and statutory body, made the defendant bankrupt as an individual citizen, which is another very obvious politically motivated and shameless action, illustrating that AGC exceeded their role as state attorney, and had been taking political actions for the famiLEE LEEgime. The bankruptcy resulted from cost of a motion seeking Constitutional Freedom against DPM & Police Chief.
21.AGC had shamelessly demanded for cost at the high court during the appeal of the previous criminal conviction which is the 1st charge in this same series of 8 charges. AGC knows very well that criminal appeal does not entitle AGC to demand for cost. The intention is similar to the above to seek bankruptcy and financial liability against defendant, with similar political motivation. The high court denied the demand of cost, however the action of AGC making such an out of the line demand shows their neutrality as a statutory body of the state, and is clearly acting as a political arm of the executive cabinet. This action is also a move to obstruct justice by attempting to deter my future appeals.
22.The police enforcement was unfair; unprofessional and clearly full of political motives as well as bad faith. 1. Failed to identify themselves as officers at scene. 2. Lied at scene to deny their identity as officers. 3. The FIRST INFORMANT who called the NPP from the scene is INDEED another Police Officer not in uniform, not an ordinary member of public. 4. The First Informant didn't want to perform his duties as a police officer, didn't identify himself, left the scene after making call. 5. SIO Soon & SGT Lam lied in court on the witness stand on oath. 6. SGT Lam lied more than once. 7. According to SIO Soon & other witnesses' testimony SGT Lam clearly lied to mislead the court and the defendant, to make the trial long and unfair. 8. Key witnesses were Acting Blur and giving testimonies that are illogical as well as evasive. 9. Police had given misleading and confusing exhibits with conflicting errors of time marked for the scene taken photos. 10. Licensing authority will never issue any sort of license to cover oppositions' political activities, this is deliberate and unfair, clearly discriminating and violating the Constitutional Article of Equality (Chapter 12). The discrimination is unlawful. 11. The enforcement by police is clearly and drastically discriminating defendant as an opposition party. This is unfair and unlawful discrimination, that busker in the evidence video near the defendant was performing with loud music and did not face any action by police at the same scene at the same time. 12. The police video showed that law enforcement was done unfairly; unprofessionally; politically motivated; trying to hide some truth such as (SIO Charles Soon captured on the tape and that he was holding a copy of The New Democrats which he denied). 13. Police video tried to avoid capturing the defendant's face at first, then moved to capture the defendants face as soon as the political scandal got mentioned in the announcement. 14. Police Video Zoomed the lens into the face of the Elector who bought 25 copies of The New Democrats. This showed that police at scene were enforcing with bad faith and politically motivated. 15. Defendant had clearly and repeatedly told IO Jeremy Koh that SDP was conducting legitimate Election Activities which has no need nor intention to break any law. 16. Defendant repeatedly via IO koh & other officers indicated full cooperation with police enforcement, regardless how unfairly it was enforced. 17. Defendant repeatedly and clearly asked IO Koh & other officers' INSTRUCTIONS & ADVICSES in order to avoid infringement of any law during all the Election Activities. 18. Police from both Ang Mo Koa & Jurong Divisions consistently replied to the defendant that ”They are in no position to advice that”. 19. All the police have done was to take pictures and video and lie at the scene denying their identities and duties, and then charged the defendant. 20. These are all acts of unlawful discriminations and framing as well as bad faith and unprofessional. 21. The defendant acted responsibly and move civic than police. 22. Defendant show cooperations and good faith to police and had been returned with only bad faith and persecuting via unfair unequal treatment, violating defendant's right under Constitution article 12. 23. Defendant and the SDP should had been protected by Constitutional Article 14, freedom of speech, in particular, more so and more prominently crucial during the Election Period. 24. Defendant is victimized by police as an opposition party Election Agent, that ALL other contesting political parties in particular the ruling PAP were intensively active during the same period of election, and those not sued by Lee Kuan Yew & Son also did not face any trouble under PEMA, such discrimination is again unlawful. 25. The other organizations and businesses were free of police actions to conduct street sales and promotions, using larger louder musics and public announcement systems, without being harassed by enforcements or police. 26. The ruling party PAP conducted lots of high profile political activities NOT ALL can be fully covered under exemptions (section 16) and rules (section 23) and the enforcement / police had never picked on the PAP, this is again unlawful discrimination, as well as politically biased.
23.Defendant is simultaneously suffering from both lawful as well as unlawful discrimination and unequal treatment under the law, in this charge.
24.The defendant suffered not just discrimination and persecutions, biased and unfair and unequal treatments under the law, in violation of constitutional protections. The enforcement ignore completely the needs of Election Activities and unprofessionally impeded the functions of the Election. The enforcement acted in bad faith and strongly exhibited political motives. The enforcement also selfishly covered their own positions as subordinates working under their politician executive heads who appoints and command them as a uniformed force, as a result they compromised the interest of public and failed to uphold fairness and equality. The enforcement discriminated against SDP vs other parties and members of the public.
25.The action of bringing these charges is partly led by the media which adopted the reporting angle of smearing the SDP especially during the Election period. In that media had reported that Chee Soon Juan of SDP had been giving illegal speeches all over Singapore. This put pressure on the police and AGC to press the 8 charges, in order to discharge their own embarrassments.
26.The DPP Lim is just barely short of misconduct of misleading the court and defendants and revealing the situation of trial inside the witness room where witnesses were present awaiting to testify on the issue of conflicting time marked on exhibits.
27.SGT Lam the scene of crime officer had clearly lied repeatedly on oath in the stand. I plea the court to take appropriate action in accordance of Evidence Act and law relevant to oath against such a police witness who lacks the honesty and integrity and undermined fairness of trial and his oath to serve the interest of public. Lacking such dealing, it is a doubt that future witnesses will not take it a serious offense against law to lie on oath as a witness of trial.
28.Much of the fairness of this trial fell on the 2 defendants both as layman of law to discover the untruth and unfairness done by prosecution and their witnesses, that defendants had to discover the clock to expose the inconstancy of time claimed by witnesses who had all modified their original testimony. There is no help from the DPP to discover these inconsistencies.
29.Prosecution witnesses were clearly reluctant to admit what are so clear on the video. This indicated that they are not acting fairly as police officers and enforcers of law, and are just interested to incriminate the opposition with their appointed powers.
30.Trial Judge had in many instances unfairly prevented the defendant to speak when there is an on going contention and interaction between 1st defendant and the DPP. Given the assurance to speak at a later time still entirely missed the interactivity, and opportunity are lost unfairly against the interest of defendant when unfair rulings or unfair arguments were made by prosecution going quickly and intensively as well as complicated, during crucial contentions such as prosecutions were lying and misleading the defense and court.
31.The extend of Trial Judge's bias against defendant's fair opportunity to speak went into the level, when defendant was merely asking permission to go to toilet, and was ordered by impatient judge to shut up and sit, without trying to even hear what the defendant was requesting.
32.As such, defendant unfairly missed crucial opportunities to address things that went against the fair interest of the defense. Such as an instant, defendant saw witness SGT Lam (scene of crime officer) eavesdropping into the trial by standing at the door of witness room with his ear nearest to the glass. That was during the arguments regarding the discrepancies on the time stamps, which SGT Lam had been ordered by judge to get off the witness stand and return to witness room. However, from the defendant's sitting angle facing witness room's door, SGT Lam had been observed to be unfairly and cunningly listening into the contention in the outset of court, which judge had ordered him to be away from. At that time, defendant had been repeatedly order by impatient judge to shut up and remain seated, thus missing the opportunity to point out this unfair and cheating nature of misconduct by a police witness inside the witness room.
33.As an activist and political fighter the defendant will challenge unfairly crafted and corruptly legislated laws in other occasions Outside the Election Periods to pursue cause of reform. However, that does not get included into the activities for Election on 8th April 2006, because the SDP instructed Election Agents and members to act only within the law for the campaign, knowing that unfair discriminations and faulting finding actions via the law will come in the way of SDP as well as Lee Kuan Yew's notorious defamation suit abuses. The action of defendant on 8th April 2006 at Woodlands MRT had been one that all efforts and sincerity were exercised by SDP & defendant as Election Agent to cooperate with enforcement and avoid infringing any law. However, being charged as shown indicated that defendant and the SDP had been victimized by politically motivated; unfair; discriminating; bad faithed and unprofessional actions of police.
34.Otherwise, defendant would not have limited the announcements to be as short as only 2-3 minutes, and constrained to progress of sales activities as well as promotion of The New Democrats. There is really lots of political hot spots that the defendants could had used the opportunity to address to the Electors via loud speakers, but due to the considerations to be refrain from infringing law, such subjects and political points were not addressed.
35.The charge and the potential conviction serves the opposite function of upholding law, because it just proved that exercising restrains to avoid infringing law does not return with positive results. Then there is no point to consider cooperating with enforcement that are unfair and politically biased, and only outright confrontation to break such corruptly legislated and enforced law is the only way to go about the reform for Republic of Singapore.
36.All the good will and good faith held by defendant to uphold law and make things work within the law, while conducting political activities seem to return negative results. This will force the politics only into a more dangerous and drastic direction. The opposition has much stronger resolve and faith than ruling party and will not back down nor give up the reform needed by Singapore. All corrupted and incompetent practices have to be removed and held accountable as a part of the reform. The defendant is willing to pay all the necessary price.
37.People of Singapore had already been enlighten by education and will not blindly follow unfair as well as corruptly practiced laws. The defendant is in this fight to get a the necessary reform and correction in place as well as in time for Singapore, before the old corrupted criminal dictator die of old age like Suharto. The course of the fight will not be affected by outcome of any trial.
38.The defendant hold all his remaining faith for the famiLEE LEEgime's law and plea the trial judge to rule full acquittal to this abusive charge. Whatever the finding is the defendant feel no remorse and ask for the maximum sentence if found guilty in order to show resolve.
39.This is a clear case of Selective Prosecution in many ways, unlawfully discriminating SDP and it's Election Agent. 1. That many investigations had been made against the defendant & co-defendant, while similar announcements made at other times for the same election activities involving longer durations and other individual announcers were not prosecuted in many occasions. And that this particular instant involving a series of sales announcements lasting a total of less than 3 minutes had been prosecuted. 2. Police wrote to defendant to abandon charge and investigations for WB/IMF incident at Hong Lim Park which involved 3 full days of stand-off against police, however they would selectively prosecute this 3 minutes of announcement. 3. The enforcement is also selective; illogical; willful and random, which had became absolutely unhelpful to the defendant conducting a lawful Election Activity exercising maximum efforts to prevent infringement of law, that the law enforcement became erratic and politically flexible, entirely lacking linearity for the defendant to make useful judgment to moderate and regulate the lawful Election Activities being conducted. 4. Explicit communication and help seeking was initiated by defendant to the police whose replies were always that “we can will only investigate and can not give any advice to you.” and this is from the entire police force involving not just 1 or 2 divisions. 5. SDP and its Election Agent fell victimized by police bureaucracy as well as willfully selective enforcement, which is unlawful discrimination and unfair.
40.The co-defendant Dr Chee Soon Juan is the most significant opposition character in Singapore politics. For this reason, it is inevitable that political motivation and biasness had been brought into this trial from every angle and points. Such that lawful as well as unlawful discriminations had been applied unfairly against the defendant in most severe extend beyond fairness can be upheld.
41.The defendant's fight in this republic seeks beyond reform, but the criminal conviction and stern punishment against a root of serious crimes in particular corruption and abuse of executive and legislative powers. At General Election 2006, this included the criminal corruption of VOTE BUYING via Progress Package. In this announcement as charged, the defendant seeks public justice against the abuse of tax payers funds to invest with Burmese drug syndicates. This charge and trial had been corruptly abuse to prevent seeking of justice and help criminals to hide behind the AGC and police by this charge and trial preventing the defendant to seek justice against MAJOR SINGNIFICANT CRIMES. This abusive action is illegal and wrong in the principal of law.
42.The defendant had made official report to director of CPIB during General Election, and informing President of the Republic, to seek investigation against Progress Package being abused to buy vote from Electors involving S$2.6 billion of tax payers funds. The CPIB officially and corruptly refused to conduct any investigation. The level of corruption and political motivation to abuse 8 charges and the judiciary exercise is so profuse beyond words. An election hearing under the Parliamentary Election Act had been corruptly dismissed, but was filed against Progress Package Vote Buying by SDP candidate Chee Siok Chin who appointed the defendant as Election Agent.
43.The defendant apply to this court the order to CPIB director to commence investigation of Vote Buying via the abuse of Progress Package involving S$2.6 Billion of public funds being distributed nationwide in cash just only 5 days before the polling. The defendant also apply similar order to CPIB director to investigate state investments in Burma involving with drug syndicates which are the most serious organized crimes. The defendant sincerely bless the court with courage to issue these orders.
Dated the 6th day of March 2008
