In 1994, the Paris-based International Herald Tribune (IHT) crossed Singapore’s leaders three times in one year. The first incident, in May, spun out of the sensational case of an American student, Michael Fay, who had been publicly caned for spray-painting cars. The IHT published a letter from a reader who criticized the Vandalism Act under which Fay had been prosecuted; he also took a shot at Edward Baker, who had been minister of law when the law was passed. The letter-writer mentioned a recent traffic accident for which Baker got off with a light charge. Though the letter-writer, the Tribune , and Singapore Press Holdings (the paper’s local printers) apologized “unreservedly,” Baker brought a defamation suit the following month. ^[46]

Two months later, the Tribune ran into trouble again when it published an article on August 2 called “The Claims About ‘Asian’ Values Don’t Usually Bear Scrutiny,” by Philip Bowring (who for a time edited the Far Eastern Economic Review ). One passage in particular enflamed official tempers: “History almost seems to consist of a battle between the corporatist needs of the state and the interests of the families who operate it,” Bowring wrote. “Dynastic politics is evident in ‘Communist’ China already, as in Singapore, despite official commitments to bureaucratic meritocracy.” ^[47]

Senior Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, felt this amounted to an accusation of nepotism. They lodged a complaint with the publisher and threatened to sue the newspaper. As former FEER editor Plott observes:

In any other country when you’ve got these kinds of familial relationships in government, you would acknowledge that the press has a right to raise that concern, right? Now whether you can therefore draw the conclusion that there’s nepotism or that this is corrupt or that there is cronyism, you at least have the right to discuss that. But Singapore has been very, very firm on this issue. Whenever this comes up, they slam a legal suit.

On August 31, 1994, the IHT, on advice of its Parisian counsel, printed an apology signed by Bowring, executive editor Jon Vincour, and publisher Richard McClean. The apology, addressed to the two Lees and to then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, said that the allegations were “completely without merit.” The IHT acknowledged that the passage in question “meant to readers” that Lee Hsien Loong had been appointed Deputy Prime Minister “not on his own merits but purely because he was Mr. Lee Kuan Yew’s son.” ^[48] Though the Herald Tribune thought that the printed apology settled the matter, the Lees’ counsel told reporters that they were still negotiating unspecified damages.

Then, on October 7, the Tribune published an opinion piece by Christopher Lingle, an American academic halfway through his two-year contract at the National University of Singapore. The article, titled “The Smoke Over Parts of Asia Obscures some Profound Concerns,” did not mention Singapore specifically, but government officials felt the implication was clear. Lingle’s piece was a reply to an October 1 article by a Singapore Foreign Ministry representative who wrote that Europe could solve its many problems by looking East for lessons on good governance. Lingle, a European specialist, disagreed. “Intolerant regimes in the region reveal considerable ingenuity in their methods of suppressing dissent,” Lingle wrote. “Some techniques lack finesse... Others are more subtle: relying upon a compliant judiciary to bankrupt opposition politicians, or buying out enough of the opposition to take control ‘democratically.’” ^[49]

Ten days later, the police searched Lingle’s home. They seized his original manuscript, research documents, and a hundred periodicals, including the Far Eastern Economic Review , the Asian Wall Street Journal , and the Economist . He was also questioned by two officers who asked him if a reasonable person would infer that his piece maligned the judiciary and undermined the general order. ^[50] Within the week, Lingle left the country and resigned his post.

The Singapore judiciary charged Lingle and four others with contempt of court. Despite a printed apology for the piece in December, Lee Kuan Yew filed a civil libel suit against the Tribune . In November 1995, the paper was ordered to pay Lee damages totaling $213,000, plus legal costs. Lingle was fined separately, and had to pay $71,000, plus costs, to the senior prime minister. Meanwhile the matter of Bowring’s piece, with its implication of nepotism, remained unresolved until July 1995. The government did decide to pursue damages, and that summer the three men who signed the August 1994 apology testified in public court hearings that they had not written it “in good faith.” ^[51] The court ordered them to pay $678,000 and the IHT decided not to contest either ruling.

To some Western media-watchers, the IHT seemed too easily cowed, especially for a paper owned by the Washington Post and the New York Times , both widely considered standard-bearers of journalistic integrity and press freedoms. The Committee to Protect Journalists blamed the IHT for the rulings, saying the paper had put itself on a “slippery slope” by apologizing for its articles. ^[52] But a statement from IHT President Richard D. Simmons said that his paper “was found to have libeled people, a situation that happens with unfortunate frequency... and we will pay the price for that.” A joint statement from publishers Katherine Graham of the Washington Post and the Times ’s Arthur Sulzberger said that free speech had not suffered in this case, and the conflict arose simply because “we publish in countries that have different laws and different standards.” ^[53]