Lee, who was Prime Minister from 1959 to 1990 and is now Minister Mentor for the island state, will be given an Honorary Doctorate of Laws by Canberra's Australian National University next week.

But senior academics have written to the university's Vice-Chancellor Ian Chubb in protest at the award, complaining that Lee quashed all opponents during his three-decade rule.

"It's outrageous. You can admit that the man oversaw an extraordinary development, but the cost of that was basically a one-party state and an intellectual atmosphere that was intimidatory at best," Dr Michael McKinley, an ANU specialist in international relations and diplomacy, told Reuters.

Lee, 83, is due to accept the award during a visit to Australia with his wife. The ANU is regularly listed as one of the world's top universities and is Australia's peak research-based campus.

A spokeswoman for the university said there would be no comment on opposition by academic staff to Lee's degree, although ANU Chancellor Dr Allan Hawke said "the good outweighs the bad" on Lee's record.

Hilary Charlesworth, the Director of ANU's Centre for International Governance and Justice, said she was baffled by the decision to award Lee, whose son Lee Hsien Loong is Singapore's third Prime Minister.

"Any human rights lawyers would be really concerned by this," she told Australian media.

High-profile Australian barrister Stuart Littlemore, who was banned from entering Singapore to represent opposition politician Chee Soon Juan in a defamation case, told the Canberra Times newspaper that ANU's decision to award Lee "brings shame upon it". The elder Lee is credited with transforming resource-poor Singapore into one of the world's most dynamic economies at the cost of political and social freedoms among the island's small 4.5 million population.

Lee banned public demonstrations, introduced tight controls over the press and has sued opposition leaders for defamation, arguing it was better to be feared than loved.

McKinley, who often speaks in Singapore, said Lee's government intimidated Singaporean academics, who felt they would be targeted if they were to talk about political issues.

"People still do not feel free to voice their opinions and certainly the chances of any political opposition being represented in parliament are absolutely minimal," he said.

"The politics of the country still remain essentially one-party and the anecdotal evidence is that he is still very, very powerful."

But ANU said the award was to honour Lee's achievements and further the university's relationship with Singapore.

                                                      Home