Singapore Official Stands Firm On Caning Case

SINGAPORE - The leader of this city-state sharply upbraided the United States yesterday for protecting individual freedoms to the point of social chaos.

Reacting to the uproar over a Singapore court's order to cane an 18-year-old American for acts of vandalism, senior minister Lee Kuan Yew said the U.S. government and media have "ridiculed" Singapore for its tough stance on crime.

The defiant lecture by Lee appeared to be very bad news for Michael Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, now serving a four-month jail term here for spray painting cars and other acts of vandalism.

In addition to his jail term, Fay is to receive six strokes across his bare buttocks with a rattan cane wielded by a martial-arts specialist, a painful ordeal that cuts the skin with each stroke and leaves permanent scars.

The flogging sentence, upheld by a Singapore court on appeal about two weeks ago, has caused an international controversy. At the same time, many Americans, concerned about the deteriorating U.S. crime situation, have expressed support for the sentence.

Despite a clemency plea to President Ong Teng Chong, there is little question here that Lee, Singapore's only prime minister for more than 30 years until 1990, still has the final say in matters of importance.

And in a recorded television interview, Lee, who is visiting New Zealand and Australia, made it clear he does not feel much compassion for the American teenager.

"The West values freedom and liberty of the individual," he said. "People in the East do not think that way. Our point of view is that government must protect the whole society, not individual misconduct."

Lee said the severity of the sentence in the Fay case had prompted the United States to "ridicule us." This, he said, exemplifies America's failure to "restrain or punish individuals, forgiving them for whatever they've done. That's why the whole country is in chaos."

He then cited rampant U.S. drug use, the recent murders of two Japanese students in California, the failure to punish the Menendez brothers for killing their parents and "the woman who did something very unnatural to her husband," a reference to the Lorena Bobbitt case - all as examples of the way in which the United States protects individual misconduct.