CHANGE SINGAPORE? START WITH JUSTICE

If Prime Minister Goh wants to reinvent Singapore, a good place to start
would be with its judicial system.

A few years back, when President Clinton's plea for clemency in the caning
of Michael Fay was refused, many Americans concluded that justice in
Singapore was too harsh and too stupid, so forget about it.

It hasn't changed. They are still caning prisoners. A quick look at the
Internet at various sites such as the MSN Singapore punishment site will
give a graphic description, including photographs of caning.

One story on the Internet is about a Singapore college couple who were
given random urine testing on a return trip from Malaysia. It was
determined that they had smoked marijuana three weeks prior in Australia.
The couple was sentenced to one year in prison. As the technology of drug
testing improves, it may in the future be possible to prove a person smoked
pot 25 or 30 years ago, and senior citizens may be spending the rest of
their lives in a Singapore prison.

James Gore