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SINGAPORE - Workers' Party (WP) Sengkang candidate Raeesah Khan apologised on Sunday for two Facebook posts said to allege police discrimination against minorities.

At an unplanned press conference the party called on Sunday night, Ms Khan, 26, said she did not mean to cause social division, but had made the remarks as she wanted to raise awareness about minority concerns.

Flanked by WP leaders Pritam Singh, Sylvia Lim and her GRC teammates, Ms Khan, with her head bowed and reading from a piece of paper, said: "I apologise to any racial group or community who have been hurt by my comments.

"My remarks were insensitive, and I regret making them. I feel really passionate about minority issues regardless of race, and in my passion I made improper remarks, and I have to be accountable for them. I will fully cooperate in any police investigations."

The apology comes after the police issued a statement on Sunday about two police reports that were made against Ms Khan.

Police said in a statement on Sunday (July 5) that she had allegedly commented that Singapore law enforcement authorities discriminated against citizens, and that compared with other groups, rich Chinese and white people were treated differently under the law.

Another police report was made over a separate post. In the context of a news article on the City Harvest Church ruling, she was alleged to have commented that Singapore jailed minorities mercilessly, harassed mosque leaders but let "corrupt church leaders who stole $50 million" free.

Responding to questions from the media, Mr Singh said the party would stand behind its Sengkang team and he and Ms Lim were at the press conference to support them.

The rest of the candidates, equity analyst Louis Chua, economist Jamus Lim and lawyer He Ting Ru looked on solemnly but did not answer questions.

Asked if this matter would affect Ms Khan's candidacy, Mr Singh said it was too early to talk about it and that the police investigations would have to be allowed to take its course.

He added that he had not known about the Facebook posts beforehand, but noted that at 26-years-old, Ms Khan is WP's youngest candidate in this election and comes from a generation that has "completely grown up on social media".

"And for me, I would be actually a bit disappointed if our candidates try to sanitise their past. And I think they should be upfront and authentic to the public. This is who they are. And in the event there are certain posts or certain comments that they may have made which are untoward, then I would expect them to explain themselves."

He added that he has no regrets fielding her and that she will continue with her campaign.

"I know that she takes each case very seriously, regardless of race, regardless of religion. She's very vested in what issue the resident is facing," he said.

"I think those are very important criteria for me personally to consider someone for candidature, whether you are able to put yourself and walk a mile in the shoes of someone who needs help and assistance, so I've got no regrets for fielding a candidate who is like that, who is prepared to walk with residents and solve their problems and issues, and I think that's an important criteria, which resulted in Raeesah being selected as a candidate."

The Straits Times understands that both of the posts in question were made on her personal Facebook account.

One post was made on May 17 about an incident involving seven foreigners violating social distancing rules at Robertson Quay during the circuit breaker period.

"Imagine if this was a group of minorities," she had said, adding that she saw police patrolling near a hawker centre and supermarket near her house every day to ensure that people practise social distancing and mask-wearing.

"Do you see police officers here? Imagine if this was a neighbourhood hawker centre. There would be policemen swarming the area and enforcing the law within minutes," Ms Raeesah had said in her post.

"Why is the law different for these people? Is it because they're rich Chinese or white people? Do you think expats will be treated with the same disdain as migrant workers who broke the law?

"I'm not a fan of aggressive policing, but what I will not accept is law enforcement that discriminates against its citizens."

The seven foreigners, including four Britons, an Austrian and two Americans, were tracked down by the police and fined in court last month. Six of them had their work passes revoked by the Manpower Ministry and were banned from working in Singapore in future.

Ms Raeesah was comparing the case to a separate incident in April, in which a work pass holder was stripped of his pass and permanently banned from working in Singapore, after breaching circuit breaker measures. Another 39 foreign workers were also fined in April for gathering in groups.

The Straits Times understands the comments on the City Harvest Church ruling were also posted on Ms Raeesah's personal Facebook account in February 2018.

After the police reports were made, her social media accounts were made private.

The police said in its statement: "The police have consulted the Attorney-General's Chambers, which advised that an offence of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race under Section 298A of the Penal Code is disclosed. Police investigations are ongoing."

For promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion or race under the Penal Code, a person can be jailed up to three years, or fined, or face both punishments.

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Singapore GE2020: WP's Raeesah Khan apologises for posts which allegedly promoted enmity between different groups - The Straits Times

Adrian Goldberg reports the murky background as the Championship team goes into administration in the casino culture of the modern game

Even by the murky standards of English football, the dizzying descent into administration of Wigan Athletic, just seven years after a famous FA Cup Final victory against Manchester City, is a disturbing turn of events.

It is a story of massive overspending, a company based in a tax haven, disappearing owners and what the towns MP Lisa Nandy suggests may be a major global scandal. Not bad for a club sitting just above the relegation zone in the Championship, the division below the Premier League.

Wigan, already battling against relegation, now faces a fight for its very existence amid calls by politicians, supporters and administrators for an overhaul of the regulations that have allowed this sorry situation to develop.

Lifelong supporter Martin Tarbuck summed up the mood in the town when he told Byline Times that putting the club into administration has devastated a community, could cost hundreds of jobs, has undone years of progress and may well kill a football club.

The Football League has proved time and time again that it can not control this issue. Clubs are community assets and they need to be protected.

This is not hyperbole.Football clubs are resilient institutions but can sometimes disappear altogether, as Bury FC demonstrated last September. After being expelled from the Football League for failing to meet a series of financial deadlines, the club now exists in name only.

Fans fear that Wigan might be forced out of business too, particularly at a time when the Coronavirus is making life difficult for many entrepreneurs who might otherwise wish to get involved.

So where has it all gone wrong for a club which enjoyed eight seasons of Premier League football from 2005 to 2013?

Before the game went into lockdown in March, the Latics as the club is affectionately known were on a good run of form and hoping to hold on to their place in the second tier of the English game.

But just as matches resumed behind closed doors, Wigans Hong Kong-based owner Au Yeung, who has never been seen at the club, decided to withdraw his support.

A source close to Wigan Athletic told Byline Times: Whats amazing is the speed at which its all happened.A couple of weeks ago we had money in the bank. Now weve had the rug pulled out from underneath us.

Until recently, Wigans finances were underwritten by Stanley Choi, a professional poker player based in Hong Kong, whose business interests also included a casino and hotel. Choi made an initial outlay of 17.5 million to buy the club, then invested a further 24 million in 18 months.

The money often came at the last minute, but it always turned up, the insider said.

If theowners had enough money to run the club just a few weeks ago, it begs the question: why has Wigan been placed in administration now?

Choi never attended a game apparently regarding the club purely as an investment but, in June, Wigan was transferred to another business in which he had a controlling interest, the New Leader Fund (NLF) registered in the Cayman Islands.

Two weeks ago, there was a further twist when control of the NLF passed to Hong Kong businessman Au Yeung, who tried forcing the clubs UK-based directors to accept responsibility for a 24 million loan used to repay Choi. When the directors refused, Yeung attempted to liquidate the club, before placing it in administration.

What grates with supporters is that these successive changes in ownership were all sanctioned by the English Football League (EFL), which has an Owners and Directors Test that many in the game regard as worthless.

Wigan supporter Martin Tarbuck said: To meet their regulations, it seems you have to have a copy of a bank statement showing proof of funds, but theres no guarantee the money will remain there.

The EFL told Byline Times: In respect of the recent change of control at Wigan the Leagues requirements were met in regard to both the Owners and Directors Test and theprovision of evidence as to source and sufficiency of funding.

However, if theowners had enough money to run the club just a few weeks ago, it begs the question: why has Wigan been placed in administration now?

There has been no shortage of conspiracy theorists on social media, including suggestions that the Latics problems were engineered on behalf of Far Eastern betting syndicates which have gambled large sums of money on the club getting relegated.

Since going into administration incurs a 12-point penalty, that is now a much more likely outcome explaining why Wigans MP Lisa Nandy referred to a major global scandal.

A source close to Wigan Athletic told Byline Times it was more likely that Choi was seeking a way to dump the football club to protect the share price of his company in Hong Kong, but admitted: I cant really find a plausible explanation for what has happened.

Choi now appears to have gone to ground and journalists have been unable to contact either him or Au Yeung.

Whatever the reason for Wigans financial difficulties, many in football see it as the latest episode in a long-running story of regulatory failure, with owners often from overseas piling in to English football attracted by the unrivalled wealth of the Premier League.

Even the club which finishes at the foot of the table earns close to 100 million from television rights, with critics arguing that this has created a casino culture in the Championship and lower levels of the Football League, as owners strive to reach the promised land.

The recently published Annual Review of Football Finance by accountants Deloitte recorded that, last season, for the fourth time in seven years, Championship clubs collectively spent more on wages than they earned in revenue with Wigan amongst them.

Deloitte described the situation as unsustainable and has found plenty of powerful support in this belief.

Last month, Conservative backbench MP Damian Collins a former Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) Committee proposed a radical Government bail-out scheme for clubs stricken by financial problems in the wake of the Coronavirus. He criticised financial mismanagement which has not seen clubs put money by for a rainy day.

Many are loss-making organisations, reliant on loans and grants from their owner and that has to change, he added. We have to put it on a more sustainable footing.

Under Collins plan, clubs which receive Government aid would have to submit to a tough new watchdog called the Football Finance Authority which would prevent the kind of over-spending which has now left Wigan Athletic so vulnerable.

His initiative has been welcomed by administrators such as Gary Sweet, chief executive of Luton Town, who told Byline Times that football is on a precipice at the moment.

We have to take this opportunity to correct the madness of overspending in the Championship, and look again at our ownership model, he said. The Football League has proved time and time again that it can not control this issue. Clubs are community assets and they need to be protected.

More here:
'A Major Global Scandal': The Collapse of Wigan Athletic Byline Times - Byline Times

Is democracy the most appropriate name for a large-scale representative system such as that of the early United States? At the end of the 18th century, the history of the terms whose literal meaning is rule by the peopledemocracy and republicleft the answer unclear. Both terms had been applied to the assembly-based systems of Greece and Rome, though neither system assigned legislative powers to representatives elected by members of the dmos. As noted above, even after Roman citizenship was expanded beyond the city itself and increasing numbers of citizens were prevented from participating in government by the time, expense, and hardship of travel to the city, the complex Roman system of assemblies was never replaced by a government of representativesa parliamentelected by all Roman citizens. Venetians also called the government of their famous city a republic, though it was certainly not democratic.

When the members of the United States Constitutional Convention met in 1787, terminology was still unsettled. Not only were democracy and republic used more or less interchangeably in the colonies, but no established term existed for a representative government by the people. At the same time, the British system was moving swiftly toward full-fledged parliamentary government. Had the framers of the United States Constitution met two generations later, when their understanding of the constitution of Britain would have been radically different, they might have concluded that the British system required only an expansion of the electorate to realize its full democratic potential. Thus, they might well have adopted a parliamentary form of government.

Embarked as they were on a wholly unprecedented effort to construct a constitutional government for an already large and continuously expanding country, the framers could have had no clear idea of how their experiment would work in practice. Fearful of the destructive power of factions, for example, they did not foresee that in a country where laws are enacted by representatives chosen by the people in regular and competitive elections, political parties inevitably become fundamentally important institutions.

Given the existing confusion over terminology, it is not surprising that the framers employed various terms to describe the novel government they proposed. A few months after the adjournment of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison, the future fourth president of the United States, proposed a usage that would have lasting influence within the country though little elsewhere. In Federalist 10, one of 85 essays by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay known collectively as the Federalist papers, Madison defined a pure democracy as a society consisting of a small number of citizens, who assemble and administer the government in person, and a republic as a government in which the scheme of representation takes place. According to Madison, The two great points of difference between a democracy and a republic, are: first, the delegation of the government, in the latter, to a small number of citizens elected by the rest; secondly, the greater the number of citizens, and greater sphere of country, over which the latter may be extended. In short, for Madison, democracy meant direct democracy, and republic meant representative government.

Even among his contemporaries, Madisons refusal to apply the term democracy to representative governments, even those based on broad electorates, was aberrant. In November 1787, only two months after the convention had adjourned, James Wilson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, proposed a new classification. [T]he three species of governments, he wrote, are the monarchical, aristocratical and democratical. In a monarchy, the supreme power is vested in a single person; in an aristocracyby a body not formed upon the principle of representation, but enjoying their station by descent, or election among themselves, or in right of some personal or territorial qualifications; and lastly, in a democracy, it is inherent in a people, and is exercised by themselves or their representatives. Applying this understanding of democracy to the newly adopted constitution, Wilson asserted that in its principles,it is purely democratical: varying indeed in its form in order to admit all the advantages, and to exclude all the disadvantages which are incidental to the known and established constitutions of government. But when we take an extensive and accurate view of the streams of power that appear through this great and comprehensive planwe shall be able to trace them to one great and noble source, THE PEOPLE. At the Virginia ratifying convention some months later, John Marshall, the future chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, declared that the Constitution provided for a well regulated democracy where no king, or president, could undermine representative government. The political party that he helped to organize and lead in cooperation with Thomas Jefferson, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and future third president of the United States, was named the Democratic-Republican Party; the party adopted its present name, the Democratic Party, in 1844.

Following his visit to the United States in 183132, the French political scientist Alexis de Tocqueville asserted in no uncertain terms that the country he had observed was a democracyindeed, the worlds first representative democracy, where the fundamental principle of government was the sovereignty of the people. Tocquevilles estimation of the American system of government reached a wide audience in Europe and beyond through his monumental four-volume study Democracy in America (183540).

Thus, by the end of the 18th century both the idea and the practice of democracy had been profoundly transformed. Political theorists and statesmen now recognized what the Levelers had seen earlier, that the nondemocratic practice of representation could be used to make democracy practicable in the large nation-states of the modern era. Representation, in other words, was the solution to the ancient dilemma between enhancing the ability of political associations to deal with large-scale problems and preserving the opportunity of citizens to participate in government.

To some of those steeped in the older tradition, the union of representation and democracy seemed a marvelous and epochal invention. In the early 19th century the French author Destutt de Tracy, the inventor of the term idologie (ideology), insisted that representation had rendered obsolete the doctrines of both Montesquieu and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, both of whom had denied that representative governments could be genuinely democratic (see below Montesquieu and Rousseau). Representation, or representative government, he wrote, may be considered as a new invention, unknown in Montesquieus time.Representative democracyis democracy rendered practicable for a long time and over a great extent of territory. In 1820 the English philosopher James Mill proclaimed the system of representation to be the grand discovery of modern times in which the solution of all the difficulties, both speculative and practical, will perhaps be found. One generation later Mills son, the philosopher John Stuart Mill, concluded in his Considerations on Representative Government (1861) that the ideal type of a perfect government would be both democratic and representative. Foreshadowing developments that would take place in the 20th century, the dmos of Mills representative democracy included women.

Continued here:
Democracy - Democracy or republic? | Britannica

By Victor Kiprop on September 26 2018 in World Facts

The United States of America is governed as a federal republic, and therefore some argue that the U.S. is not a democracy. A republic is defined as a political system in which the supreme power is vested upon the citizenry that is entitled to vote for its representatives and officers responsible to them, while a democracy is defined as a government of the people and by the people exercised through elected or direct representative. It can be difficult to distinguish between a democracy and a republic, and therefore it would be rational to conclude that the United States is both a democracy and a republic.

The key difference between a republic and a democracy is not how power is projected, but the limits to power. Both use the representational system, meaning that the citizenry is represented in the government by elected leaders. In both cases, the majority rule, but in a republic the constitution limits how the government can exercise power. These rights are inalienable and cannot be changed or altered by an elected government. The United States is a typical example of a republic state because the constitution limits the power of the government. Some rights such as the Bill of Rights, the right to vote, and the powers to amend the constitution are limited and cannot be changed by the sitting government without consulting the public directly.

The United States is a democracy, but it is not a true democracy. Instead, it is a representative democracy. The common forms of democracy are direct democracy and representative democracy. A direct democracy is a system of government in which the majority have their say on every matter concerning governance. Direct democracies hold referendums each time an issue has to be decided upon because there are no elective representatives. The United States is a representative democracy, as the public elects individuals to represent them at the government level. The United States is also a constitutional democracy, meaning that the functions and roles of the government are governed by the constitution that also protects the rights and privileges of the citizenry regardless of whether they are majority or minority.

Modern states present themselves as democratic republics governed by a constitution. The government can amend the constitution through acts of parliaments and referendums. As long as the constitution continues to protect the rights of the people, the citizenry continues to vote for representatives, and the constitution limits the power of the government, the United States remains both a republic and a democracy.

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Is the United States a Republic or a Democracy? - WorldAtlas

A recent episode of the PBS series Royal Myths and Secrets dealt with the French Revolution.

My concept of this pivotal period in history was simple - there was an uprising by starving peasants due to the excesses of King Louis XVI and his self-indulgent queen, Marie Antoinette. It began with the storming of the Bastille. The king and queen were imprisoned and their lives put to a grisly end on the guillotine. End of storyor was it?

In 1789 France was in dire financial straits due to enormous debt incurred by supporting America during its fight for independence. It was the bourgeois middle-class, aligned with the nations nobility that were largely responsible for the revolt against the monarchy. The contrived assault on the Bastille did not free political prisoners but rather seven criminals who were subsequently rearrested. For three years the revolutionaries and loyalists along with the king sought reforms to address the nations problems. In that time, tales of the queens supposed disregard for the poor and rumors of alleged infidelities and perversions were published, circulating among the citizens, further inciting scorn and hatred for her.

By 1791 France was floundering. Civil war ensued. Attempting escape, the royal couple was captured and imprisoned. The end of his reign came in 1793 with his execution followed by that of the queen. This began the "The Reign of Terror" with over 14,000 citizens sent to the guillotine. It would be 80 years from the onset of the revolution before the first stable democracy was finally established in France

While France facilitated and was inspired by Americas success in establishing a democracy conceived in and dedicated to liberty and equality, their efforts resulted in a grim, lengthy struggle prolonged by internal strife.

Since its founding America has engaged in many battles - against Nazism, Fascism, Imperialism, Communism and Radical Terrorism.

Now we are instructed to believe in a new enemy - "bad, evil people" who "would tear down the beliefs, culture, identity" of America. Whose "radical view of American history is a web of lies."

Those who "indoctrinate our children" that are being "taught in school to hate their own country."

Those who seek "a cultural revolution" by means of "extreme indoctrination and bias in education, journalism, and other cultural institutions."

Their weapon - "Cancel Culture", "driving people from their jobs, shaming dissenters, and demanding total submission from anyone who disagrees".

Those are the words of the President of the United States as delivered on the eve of a celebration of this nations independence; who further charged those posing these threats as "left-wing" "liberal Democrats" whose "goal is not a better America; their goal is the end of America."

I leave it to the reader to determine who poses the threat to the future of democracy in a truly united country.

Kathie Moore, rural Hutchinson, is a freelance artist, retired from the U.S. Postal Service. Email her at klmnews45@gmail.com.

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The enemy of democracy - News - The Hutchinson News