3 days ago
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SINGAPORE: The chief editor of socio-political website The Online Citizen (TOC), Terry Xu, is waging a public campaign to gain sympathy and support from Singaporeans, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Manpower Minister Tan See Leng have alleged in a lawsuit against Xu.
Documents obtained by CNA on Friday (Mar 28) show that the ministers filed claims against Mr Xu, whose full name is Xu Yuanchen, on Jan 6 this year and have since been granted permission to serve court papers on him in Taiwan.
The defamation suits relate to a TOC's article titled "Bloomberg: Nearly half of 2024 GCB transactions lack public record, raising transparency concerns". The article comments on a Bloomberg article that is also the subject of defamation proceedings by the ministers.
The Bloomberg article, titled "Singapore Mansion Deals Are Increasingly Shrouded in Secrecy", was published on Dec 12, 2024, and speaks about Good Class Bungalow (GCB) transactions in Singapore. Both ministers have sued Bloomberg and its reporter, Low De Wei, for libel.
TOC's article, which referred to and commented on Bloomberg's article, was also published on Dec 12, 2024, and remains accessible as of Friday morning.
Dr Tan and Mr Shanmugam are represented by the same legal team from Davinder Singh Chambers: Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, Mr David Fong, Ms Sambhavi Rajangam and Mr Adam Lau.
This is not the first time Mr Xu has faced legal action from a minister.
He was previously sued by then-Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong over another TOC article about Mr Lee's dispute with his siblings - Dr Lee Wei Ling and Mr Lee Hsien Yang - over their family home at 38 Oxley Road.
Mr Xu, then still residing in Singapore, lost that defamation suit and was ordered to pay S$210,000 in damages to Mr Lee in September 2021.
Separately, Mr Xu was sentenced to three weeks' jail by a district court in April 2022 for defaming Cabinet members. Upon appeal, the sentence was changed to an S$8,000 (US$6,000) fine in May 2023.
By then, however, Mr Xu had already served the three-week jail term and had relocated to Taiwan, where he continues to write articles for TOC.
EFFORTS TO REACH XU IN TAIWAN
In addition to filing their claims, the two ministers detailed efforts to reach Xu in Taiwan. These include them submitting affidavits in support of their application for leave to file papers on Mr Xu outside of Singapore.
The ministers submitted a request to have their originating claims, statements of claim and court orders sent through "the proper channel to Taiwan for service" on Xu on Feb 26. The destination specified was an address in Zhongshan District, Taipei.
They also submitted a translation certification stating that the three documents, along with a fourth, had been translated from English into Mandarin by a team of translators, as required under the Rules of Court.
In its latest document - a letter to the Supreme Court dated Mar 11 - the ministers' lawyers said that Xu had not yet been served papers.
It referred to its request to the Supreme Court on Feb 26, saying that this had been accepted and assigned a case number. However, no further updates had been received as of Mar 11.
In response to CNA's query on whether the ministers had formally served papers on him in Taiwan, Mr Xu replied "no", without elaborating further.
MINISTERS' CASE AGAINST XU
Similar to their lawsuits against Bloomberg and reporter Low De Wei, both ministers are seeking unspecified damages and costs against Mr Xu, along with an injunction to restrain him from publishing or disseminating defamatory allegations.
In largely similar Statements of Claims, the two ministers identified the offending words in TOC's article and state that Mr Xu had published them - or caused them to be published - across social media and broadcast messaging platforms, such as X, Telegram, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook.
They argued that the offending words are understood to "falsely mean that (the ministers are) part of an opaque system with no safeguards or disclosure requirements, exploited legal mechanisms for privacy in selling (their) property in a non-transparent manner, to keep (their) transaction secret and to avoid scrutiny, and thereby acted improperly".
The words are "false and baseless" and are "calculated to disparage and impugn" the ministers, the documents stated.
The documents pointed out that the article and social media posts were also republished on various websites and forums, such as SG Talk and Reddit.
"The claimant has been gravely injured in his character and reputation, and has been brought into public scandal, odium and contempt" and has suffered "loss and damage", the documents stated.
The documents noted how Mr Xu was sent a letter of demand on Dec 19, 2024, calling for the article to be removed and a public apology, among other demands.
However, Mr Xu has not complied and has continued to draw attention to the article and posts through follow-up content, the ministers said.
"The defendant waged and continues to wage a public campaign to gain sympathy and support from Singaporeans against the claimant by publicly and falsely accusing him (of) 'suppress(ing) legitimate journalism' and 'press freedom' through 'legal threats' or 'harassment'," the documents said.
The cases against Mr Xu are scheduled for a case conference on Apr 1 in the Supreme Court, where the court is expected to issue procedural directions, and set a timeline for parties to file documents.
