I’ve just heard news that Han Hui Hui has fled Singapore to seek asylum in an unnamed European country according to a statement by Leong Sze Hian. I am confident that that country is Norway. The fact that Leong will not disclose the name of the country is typical of the way he manipulates people behind the scenes. This is a pathetic attempt to create mystery and drama so that people will keep their popcorn topped up and focus on Leon.

The reason I am sure it is Norway is that Leong was on a visit to Norway with Roy. This created some controversy because Roy had asked for funds for his court case but later said it was valid to use it for a research trip to Norway. If she has been persuaded to go to the UK, it is more doubtful that she will be granted asylum there. Norway is a safer bet.

The timing is also typical of the way Leong manipulates media cycles. Obviously it has been timed to coincide with the viral news about Amos. However  I actually think the timing is a mistake since this risks inducing a sense of asylum seeker fatigue in Singapore. Unless this is part of the plan and the objective is to take the focus away from Amos and campaigns to raise money for him and get him out of detention.

I first got to know HHH when she sent me a plea asking me to help with her case against the Ministry of Education. There followed a period of time when I struggled to make any sense of her case since the notes in her blog were difficult to understand and she used pseudonyms to disguise her identity. However the effort was worth it because as I persevered I realised she had an iron-clad case. The case was  very simple. The Council on Private Education, a quasi-government organisation or quango, was suing her because she said that her private school was giving pupils the answers beforehand making the exams worthless. I sent her  to M. Ravi but she went to someone else and settled her case which was a huge mistake. By settling there was no public hearing and she agreed to a confidentiality agreement so her testimony and the revelations she made were lost to history. Also a public hearing would have allowed a definitive ruling on whether a public body could sue an individual. We will never know but she has gone down in history as the girl who harassed special needs kids rather than the one who stood up and established our right not to be sued for defamation by the Government or Government-linked entities.

HHH of course contested GE 2015, a move I advised at the time so that if she got fined more than $2,000 it would be seen as a political move to keep her out of politics.  I have no doubt that this will be the basis for her claim for asylum as a political dissident. It is highly amusing that she took my advice for her safety and used it to run against me. In fact she ran as an independent, though when we say “independent” I mean more specifically as a puppet of Leong’s, who in a rare move came out of the shadows and was by her side at every stage of her election campaign and introduced her at her rallies.

I had turned HHH down as a candidate as I did not think she had understood the concept of what being an MP entailed and just wanted to use the platform to bang on about Roy and CPF.

No doubt Amos Yee and HHH are going to be joined together in every report like peas in a pod but there are important differences between the two. From my first hand experience of the two, there is no doubt Amos shows flashes of genius and spends a lot of time honing his craft. Some of his videos are reminiscent of the early stand up of Woody Allen. He stood up to the Lee family and took the consequences on the chin, literally. He is not the best person to be an auto-didact on political theory or economics but if he went into film making I have no doubt he would be phenomenal. He is after all still a teenager.

HHH on the other hand has got acute political instincts. She knew right away when she was being wrongly bullied. Even though I kicked her off the campaign bus she had raised some really valid points in all her discussions and meetings beforehand. For example, when a state media journalist asked her how long she had been with Reform Party, she immediately shot back that no journalist asked a PAP candidate how long they had been with PAP. In removing her I had hoped that she would spend the intervening years between elections maturing and would come back to fight another day. Instead I think she was badly advised through a series of missteps including this last one where she has fled to Norway. It has to be said that she has a huge and devoted following among senior citizens who revere her for fighting for their CPF. Although she lost her deposit she came close to beating our candidate. HHH has not gone out of her way to offend anyone, she is after all 30 years old and from Malaysia originally but has sadly shown she is easily manipulated by those funding her and pulling her strings. In another era or another country she might have been an Emmeline Pankhurst or a Rosa Luxemburg. Amos in another country would be an acclaimed shock jock or talk show host and a poster boy for the absolutist freedom of speech movement.

Leong on the other hand has to my astonishment become head of Maruah. I have never understood how Leong did not get arrested and charged at the same time as Roy, HHH and the others. He told me that coincidentally just before the police arrived he felt ill and went into a tent to lie down. He is clearly a very lucky man with a great sense of timing.

Life as an exile or a refugee is far from easy and I wish Amos and HHH all the best.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam