Ambassador to the US Responds to Claims of Political Suppression in Singapore

The Singapore government has strongly refuted statements made by Li Shengwu, a Harvard professor, featured in a video released by The New York Times (NYT) on January 22. The video, titled How Tyranny Begins: It Can Happen Here in America, presented Li alongside other global figures discussing perceived political oppression in their respective countries, including Russia, Nicaragua, and Hungary.

In his segment, Li, the grandson of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, accused his uncle, current Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, of using legal action and police investigations to silence political adversaries. Li specifically referenced a 2017 Facebook post that led to a contempt of court charge and claimed that this prosecution forced him to leave Singapore.

In response, Singapore’s Ambassador to the US, Lui Tuck Yew, publicly challenged Li’s comments in a letter to the NYT editor on January 26. Lui highlighted that Li had not been exiled, jailed, or had his assets confiscated, as some individuals in the video had experienced. He clarified that Li paid a fine of $15,000 in 2020 and had not faced any further legal action. Additionally, Lui stated that Li remains a Singaporean citizen and is free to return to Singapore at any time.

Lui also took issue with Li’s assertions about fighting for justice, inviting him to participate in Singapore’s upcoming General Election, slated to occur by November. The Ambassador expressed regret over Li’s critical portrayal of Singapore, which he described as a country his grandfather had played a crucial role in building.

Furthermore, Lui addressed a separate NYT article from January 11 that labelled Lee Kuan Yew as “authoritarian” and referred to the Lee family as “Singapore’s first family,” dismissing both descriptions as misleading and inaccurate.