Singapore says WSJ waging campaign against judges

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore's attorney general accused the Wall Street Journal of waging a campaign to tarnish the country's judiciary, but said he is not pushing for the harshest sentence in contempt proceedings against the newspaper.

Singapore's attorney general brought contempt proceedings against the publisher of the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal and two of its editors earlier this month.

"I'm not here to punish the Wall Street Journal," Attorney-General Walter Woon told Reuters in an interview this week.

"This is not the first time they have accused our judges of being biased, they have done it twice before and this smacks to me of an ideological campaign," he said.

The Wall Street Journal, owned by News Corp's Dow Jones & Co, said in a statement earlier this month in response to the contempt proceedings that it does not believe the articles involved were contemptuous of the Singapore courts.

The Southeast Asian country's leaders have sued many foreign news organisations including the International Herald Tribune, the Economist and Bloomberg, many of whom paid thousands in fines or out-of-court settlements.

Singapore's leaders say the defamation lawsuits are necessary to protect the reputations of its political leaders but critics say the lawsuits are used to stifle dissent.

The world's largest legal association, the International Bar Association, released a report in July expressing concern over the independence of Singapore courts when it came to adjudicating lawsuits involving political figures.

Woon, who was appointed as Attorney General in April this year, said that report was "ignorant" and the Bar Association did not understand the Singapore judicial system.

He also said the Western media had an axe to grind with Singapore because they disagreed with the country's model of governance.

"The problem with the Western press, especially the American press, is that they think their first amendment right applies to them all over the world," Woon said, referring to the U.S. constitution which guarantees freedom of speech and expression.

Woon said the Wall Street Journal has been on a long campaign to tarnish the reputation of Singapore's judiciary.

"I feel the judges have been unfairly treated and this has been going on for 20 years because people keep repeating the same old worn-out arguments," Woon said.

Singapore first took legal action against the Wall Street Journal in 1985 for contempt of court for an editorial commenting on a trial of an opposition leader. The Wall Street Journal apologised and was fined $7,600, according to newspaper reports.

The founding father of modern Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, argued that limits on expression were needed for peace and social stability, which were necessary to attract investors.

Woon dismissed allegations of judicial bias as "total rubbish" and said the high court judges had nothing to fear if they passed a judgment against the ruling party because once appointed, their tenures are guaranteed till the age of 65.

Singapore's own media are government controlled but it allows foreign media to operate in the country. However, if the foreign press is deemed by authorities to have engaged in "domestic politics", its circulation could be cut, according to law.

"They don't understand our system at all, but they would like to throw stones and be immune ... we can't afford that," Woon said.