The Curious Case of Tecman & Tracts
A legal case that has gained my attention lately is the case in which a married couple is charged with sedition and currently being trialed for distributing and possessing religiously objectionable/seditious materials.
According to local news reports, the married couple, both Christian, has been mailing people with Christian comic tracts published by US-based Chick Publications; at least two recipients of these tracts found them objectionable and action was taken against the married couple after a complaint was made to the authorities.
What gained my attention about this was the statement reportedly made by Mr. A. R. Madeei, the Media Development Authority (MDA)’s senior assistant director for publications, in court in response to a question by the married couple’s defense lawyer.
Mr. Madeei was reported to have said that “it is not possible for the MDA to examine each and every publication sold in bookshops here as close to two million books are imported” and that the MDA allows “the industry to self-regulate and refer to us [the MDA] publications that are in doubt” (Both these quotes are extracted from “Couple on trial for anti-Islamic tracts: Booklets available in store, says lawyer”, Straits Times, 29/1/2009).
Hmm… I would have thought that, in light of the strong emphasis placed by local authorities on maintaining religious harmony and the local authorities’ vigilance towards political materials, the local authorities (in this case, the MDA) would be more pro-active in checking the spread of potentially religiously seditious/objectionable materials within Singapore or at least not to adopt as passive a stance as to wait for people to refer to it such materials.
[Aside: sardonically speaking, I suppose that this may be interpreted as evidence that, contrary to what its detractors have said about it, Singapore is not an omnipotent and omniscient Orwellian police state]
Also, curiously enough, it would seem that while the MDA has restricted access to the website of Chick Publications, it has not imposed a similar ban on the publications produced by it, considering how the comic tracts in question were available at Tecman, a Christian bookstore located at Bras Basah Complex. This, to me, would be akin to if the MDA banned pornographic websites but allowed for pornographic magazines to be freely imported and sold by local bookstores (of course, the MDA bans both pornographic websites and magazines). I do not know about you all but it is rather perplexing to me how although the MDA has the discretion to restrict access to the website of Chick Publications, it does not act similarly when it comes to publications produced by the same company.
And if I have interpreted correctly what Mr. Madeei has said, it would seem to me that if no complaints were made against the comic tracts in question, no action would be taken against these tracts and their circulation in Singapore would continue to be allowed or at least go undetected by the MDA. In light of this, I cannot help wondering about if there are similar materials out there in local bookstores which remain undetected because nobody has referred them to the authorities.
Moving on, it is also perplexing to me how although the authorities discovered quantities of religiously objectionable/seditious comic tracts at the residence of the abovementioned married couple on 30th January of last year, it was only on the 28th of January this year that the authorities raided Tecman (i.e. the bookstore from which the married couple acquired their comic tracts) and seized the entire display of tracts by Chick Publications at the store (and it seems that this action was taken only after it was revealed in court by the married couple’s defense lawyer that such materials were available at the store).
This would thus imply that there was a time gap of almost a year from when the married couple was arrested to when action was taken against the bookstore from which they gotten the tracts that they are being charged for possessing! Why was such action only taken after so long? Surely, the authorities would have, in their course of questioning the couple, found out from the couple, or at least asked them, where they have acquired the comic tracts? I cannot help but wonder if during this time gap of almost one year whether there was any form of instruction/warning from the authorities to Tecman to cease their selling of comic tracts produced by Chick Publications. If there was no such instruction/warning, then I wonder how many copies of these tracts were being sold by the store before and during this time gap of almost one year.
Finally, I find it rather curious that it seems to me that there have been, as of this moment in time, no statement and/or comment from the local Christian community and/or their leaders regarding this case. I mean, we frequently hear calls for the moderates within the local Muslim community to disavow the ideology and tactics employed by Islamist (not Islamic) terrorists and the local Muslim community, in my opinion, has responded to these calls. Hence, in light of this, I cannot help but feel that the silence by the local Christian community with regards to this case is rather deafening. I would humbly suggest that the local Christian community and/or their leaders come out to disavow the evangelical methods employed by the married couple or at least the ideas propagated in the comic tracts, lest their silence be misinterpreted as perhaps a tacit endorsement of the couple’s actions and/or of the ideas contained within the comic tracts produced by Chick Publications.
[Aside: I also find it rather curious how there have been no calls, apart from mine, for the local Christian community to make some form of statement about this case. Why the disparity? If one argues that there is no need for the local Christian community to do because the actions of the married couple and the ideas of Chick Publications are not representative of Christians/Christianity, then that begs the question of why there, on the other hand, is a need for the Muslim community to do so with regards to the ideology and tactics of Islamist terrorists?]
According to local news reports, the married couple, both Christian, has been mailing people with Christian comic tracts published by US-based Chick Publications; at least two recipients of these tracts found them objectionable and action was taken against the married couple after a complaint was made to the authorities.
What gained my attention about this was the statement reportedly made by Mr. A. R. Madeei, the Media Development Authority (MDA)’s senior assistant director for publications, in court in response to a question by the married couple’s defense lawyer.
Mr. Madeei was reported to have said that “it is not possible for the MDA to examine each and every publication sold in bookshops here as close to two million books are imported” and that the MDA allows “the industry to self-regulate and refer to us [the MDA] publications that are in doubt” (Both these quotes are extracted from “Couple on trial for anti-Islamic tracts: Booklets available in store, says lawyer”, Straits Times, 29/1/2009).
Hmm… I would have thought that, in light of the strong emphasis placed by local authorities on maintaining religious harmony and the local authorities’ vigilance towards political materials, the local authorities (in this case, the MDA) would be more pro-active in checking the spread of potentially religiously seditious/objectionable materials within Singapore or at least not to adopt as passive a stance as to wait for people to refer to it such materials.
[Aside: sardonically speaking, I suppose that this may be interpreted as evidence that, contrary to what its detractors have said about it, Singapore is not an omnipotent and omniscient Orwellian police state]
Also, curiously enough, it would seem that while the MDA has restricted access to the website of Chick Publications, it has not imposed a similar ban on the publications produced by it, considering how the comic tracts in question were available at Tecman, a Christian bookstore located at Bras Basah Complex. This, to me, would be akin to if the MDA banned pornographic websites but allowed for pornographic magazines to be freely imported and sold by local bookstores (of course, the MDA bans both pornographic websites and magazines). I do not know about you all but it is rather perplexing to me how although the MDA has the discretion to restrict access to the website of Chick Publications, it does not act similarly when it comes to publications produced by the same company.
And if I have interpreted correctly what Mr. Madeei has said, it would seem to me that if no complaints were made against the comic tracts in question, no action would be taken against these tracts and their circulation in Singapore would continue to be allowed or at least go undetected by the MDA. In light of this, I cannot help wondering about if there are similar materials out there in local bookstores which remain undetected because nobody has referred them to the authorities.
Moving on, it is also perplexing to me how although the authorities discovered quantities of religiously objectionable/seditious comic tracts at the residence of the abovementioned married couple on 30th January of last year, it was only on the 28th of January this year that the authorities raided Tecman (i.e. the bookstore from which the married couple acquired their comic tracts) and seized the entire display of tracts by Chick Publications at the store (and it seems that this action was taken only after it was revealed in court by the married couple’s defense lawyer that such materials were available at the store).
This would thus imply that there was a time gap of almost a year from when the married couple was arrested to when action was taken against the bookstore from which they gotten the tracts that they are being charged for possessing! Why was such action only taken after so long? Surely, the authorities would have, in their course of questioning the couple, found out from the couple, or at least asked them, where they have acquired the comic tracts? I cannot help but wonder if during this time gap of almost one year whether there was any form of instruction/warning from the authorities to Tecman to cease their selling of comic tracts produced by Chick Publications. If there was no such instruction/warning, then I wonder how many copies of these tracts were being sold by the store before and during this time gap of almost one year.
Finally, I find it rather curious that it seems to me that there have been, as of this moment in time, no statement and/or comment from the local Christian community and/or their leaders regarding this case. I mean, we frequently hear calls for the moderates within the local Muslim community to disavow the ideology and tactics employed by Islamist (not Islamic) terrorists and the local Muslim community, in my opinion, has responded to these calls. Hence, in light of this, I cannot help but feel that the silence by the local Christian community with regards to this case is rather deafening. I would humbly suggest that the local Christian community and/or their leaders come out to disavow the evangelical methods employed by the married couple or at least the ideas propagated in the comic tracts, lest their silence be misinterpreted as perhaps a tacit endorsement of the couple’s actions and/or of the ideas contained within the comic tracts produced by Chick Publications.
[Aside: I also find it rather curious how there have been no calls, apart from mine, for the local Christian community to make some form of statement about this case. Why the disparity? If one argues that there is no need for the local Christian community to do because the actions of the married couple and the ideas of Chick Publications are not representative of Christians/Christianity, then that begs the question of why there, on the other hand, is a need for the Muslim community to do so with regards to the ideology and tactics of Islamist terrorists?]
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