Aanchal Agarwal –
Published on: September 1, 2021, at 21:45 IST
Singapore High Court today ordered two news bloggers to pay damages of about $275,113 to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
The fine was imposed with regards to an article published about the status of the home of his late father who is the founder of the city, Lee Kuan Yew.
Lawsuits were filed against writer Rubaashini Shunmuganathan and editor Xu Yuan Chen over the article published in August of 2019 on a news portal named The Online Citizen.
The article stated the differences which took place within Lee’s family regarding a family property.
High Court Justice Audrey Lim stated that the article damaged Lee’s character and reputation.
Justice Audrey Lim further stated that “This struck at the heart of Lee’s personal integrity and could severely undermine his credibility, not just personally but also as the prime minister, and call into question his fitness to govern with integrity”.
Both Xu and Rubaashini were directed to pay $210,000 and $160,000 respectively as damages to the Prime Minister.
The Secretary of the Prime Minister in a press statement stated that the damages received will be donated to charity.
In April also an Activist and a Financial Advisor were separately sued for defamation and had to turn crowd funding to raise tens of thousands of dollars to pay the Prime Minister damages.
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