Photo: A screenshot of Catherine Lim's letter, taken from her blog
There has been a lot going on on the social and political front since the rise of social media in Singapore.
This has compelled author and social commentator Catherine Lim to write an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister on June 7.
In her letter, Lim points out that there are "two clear signs" proving that Singapore's current situation calls for "a greater sense of urgency".
The first sign is that "people are resorting to forms of high-visibility, high-risk protest", the second one is the fact that "the protest is not confined to a small group of young dissidents emboldened by Internet power" and that even senior citizens have resorted to vandalism.
At present time, there has been no response from the government. However, the South China Morning Post published a letter today sent by Singapore's consulate-general to Hong Kong, Jacky Foo.
According to Channel NewsAsia, the letter was a response to an article titled "Writer Catherine Lim's open letter to Singaporean PM fuels social media debate" published by the SCMP on June 9.
In it, Foo accuses Lim of continuingly "bemoaning" the "collapse of trust and respect for the government". He also says that Lim is "wrong to claim that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's defamation suit against a blogger will further erode trust".
Foo says that the Singapore government carried the country through crisis after crisis — "the 1997 Asian financial crisis", "the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003" and the "2008 global financial crisis" — even after Lim first "asserted" that Singaporean's had lost their trust in the government back in 1994.
He stands by his claim saying that Singapore scored a "respectable" 75 percent as compared to Hong Kong's 45 percent in a report titled Edelman Trust Barometer by world's leading public relations firm Edelman.
Photo: A screenshot of Catherine Lim's letter, taken from her blog
There has been a lot going on on the social and political front since the rise of social media in Singapore.
This has compelled author and social commentator Catherine Lim to write an open letter addressed to the Prime Minister on June 7.
In her letter, Lim points out that there are "two clear signs" proving that Singapore's current situation calls for "a greater sense of urgency".
The first sign is that "people are resorting to forms of high-visibility, high-risk protest", the second one is the fact that "the protest is not confined to a small group of young dissidents emboldened by Internet power" and that even senior citizens have resorted to vandalism.
At present time, there has been no response from the government. However, the South China Morning Post published a letter today sent by Singapore's consulate-general to Hong Kong, Jacky Foo.
According to Channel NewsAsia, the letter was a response to an article titled "Writer Catherine Lim's open letter to Singaporean PM fuels social media debate" published by the SCMP on June 9.
In it, Foo accuses Lim of continuingly "bemoaning" the "collapse of trust and respect for the government". He also says that Lim is "wrong to claim that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's defamation suit against a blogger will further erode trust".
Foo says that the Singapore government carried the country through crisis after crisis — "the 1997 Asian financial crisis", "the outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2003" and the "2008 global financial crisis" — even after Lim first "asserted" that Singaporean's had lost their trust in the government back in 1994.
He stands by his claim saying that Singapore scored a "respectable" 75 percent as compared to Hong Kong's 45 percent in a report titled Edelman Trust Barometer by world's leading public relations firm Edelman.