Highly acclaimed actor Neo Swee Lin was a guest speaker at the Singapore Democratic Party’s rally in Bukit Batok on 3 May. At the rally she appealed to PM Lee Hsien Loong, Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob and Culture Minister Grace Fu to conduct the campaign for the by-election in a dignified manner.
Swee Lin released a letter at the rally signed by 30 other people from all walks of life who simply called for a fair election campaign.
The thirty-one people who signed the letter said: “We would like to categorically state that we do not condone the personal attacks and character assassination made by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, Speaker of Parliament Halimah Yacob, and Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, against Dr Chee Soon Juan of the SDP.”
The letter was made available online for members of the public to sign the appeal to the Prime Minister (link: http://chn.ge/1rtlg38).
So far over 3000 peiple have signed the letter. And one of the persons who has signed the letter has identified herself as ‘Dr Lee Wei Ling’ (link: http://chn.ge/1Oeww8l).
She signed the letter with the following message of support:
“First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said this: Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.”
Fellow doctor and SDP member Paul Tambyah had referred to the same quote of the former American first lady in his speech at the rally on 3 May, to ask the PAP to stop attacking Dr Chee Soon Juan.
Ex-Director of ISD, Mr Yoong Siew Wah, who had endorsed Dr Chee’s bid for the constituency had also asked Dr Lee to consider supporting Dr Chee in the by-election.
“She will forever be remembered as a national heroine” if she did, he said.
“But if the power that be wants to establish a dynasty, LKY’s daughter will not allow LKY’s name to be sullied by a dishonorable son.”
These were the words of Dr Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, and she had said them in an email to a local newspaper.
Her brother and the Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Lee Hsien Loong, was quick to denounce Dr Lee’s accusations. He said her allegations were “completely untrue”.
But when an international publication, the Wall Street Journal, called Dr Lee to get her side of the story for their article yesterday (11 Apr), she would only tell them that the dispute “is a Singaporean matter” and that she “always try to stick by the truth”.
—
Update: Dr Lee has denied signing the petition to stop the character assassination of Dr Chee. Read her response in full here: http://bit.ly/1UAzlra.