Jail serves as Chee's free-speech forum

That was only the beginning of his problems. Soon he lost his job. When he complained that his sacking was politically motivated, he was sued for defamation. As in most suits filed by government forces, Chee lost the court case. And to pay the damages, he ended up losing his house, too.

Surely the Singaporean government has little to fear from Chee. After all, Chee is from the flyweight Singapore Democratic Party which lost all its seats at the 1997 elections. Furthermore, with 81 of 83 MPs on its side, the government has such a tight grip in Parliament that it had to offer a bonus seat to the opposition. More recently, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew boasted that Singapore is the ''most unshaken state in a region that has been struck by a typhoon''.

So why the near-obsessive effort to gag Chee?

Early this month, Chee was jailed for seven days when he refused to pay the US$800 fine after he was found guilty for speaking in public in the heart of Singapore's financial district last December. The activist has apparently opted for prison over the fine to hammer home that ''he has not done anything wrong''.

On Wednesday, Chee was again found guilty for another public speech he gave on Jan 5. This time he was slapped with 12 days of imprisonment, or a US$1470 fine -- a sentence that would automatically disqualify him from standing for election for five years.

Clearly, Chee has deliberately sought to test the limits of political debate in the tightly-ruled city-state. The government said under the law, anyone holding a public event for more than five people must apply for a police permit. To this, Chee countered that the Public Entertainments Act of 1959 is not in accordance with Singapore's constitution. The permit system, censorship laws and state control of key media, said Chee, stifle debate and prevent the opposition from being heard, forcing him to take to the streets and break laws. Indeed, the 1963 constitution guarantees freedom of speech, association and assembly. However, there is a sub-clause which allows the government the right to curtail free speech and association on grounds of ''national security''. Put simply, Singaporean have the right to free speech, but not freedom after speech.

The free speech trials are not the end of Chee's legal troubles. Next month, he is to answer a summons from, yes, the environment ministry for failing to secure a permit to sell his book, To Be Free: Stories from Asia's Struggle Against Oppression. While the book was not banned, major bookstores have refused to carry it. And when Chee tried to sell his book on the streets, he was promptly charged for hawking without a licence.

The book is about six Asian activists who have served as an inspiration for Chee -- Taiwan's long-time dissident Shih Ming-teh; Burma's Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi; assassinated Philippine politician Benigno Aquino; Indonesian author Pramoedya Ananta Toer; South Korean President Kim Dae-jung; and Chia Thye Poh, the longest-serving political prisoner in Singapore.

No doubt, Chee's one-man campaign has drawn some sympathy, if not support, from many Singaporeans who for decades have known only fear. Elsewhere in the region, the support for Chee is more emphatic. Taiwan's Shih, who is now a prominent opposition legislator, was in court during Chee's second trial. Other backers include the Council of Asian Liberals and Democrats, an organisation of nine liberal democratic parties in Asia including Thailand's Democrats.

Senior Minister Lee, however, appears to have nothing but contempt for democrats such as Chee. Chee, he said, must have read about the turmoil and agitation in neighbouring Malaysia and thinks he can be Anwar Ibrahim leading the crowds in a reformasi movement in the island state. ''Well, let him try,'' he said.

Interestingly, that was exactly what Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said of Anwar not so long ago.