Roy Ngerng, the blogger who is being sued by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong for defamation, announced that he has raised $36,600 on his first two days of fundraising via crowdsourcing for donations online.

This amount is more than the $30,000 raised by Singapore Democratic Party Secretary General Chee Soon Juan to clear his bankruptcy in 2012. The target was reached in 10 days.

Chee was sued by former prime ministers Lee Kuan Yew and Goh Chok Tong for defaming them during the 2001 General Election and was declared a bankrupt in 2006 after he failed to pay $500,000 in damages.

In September 2012, the two Singapore leaders accepted Chee's settlement offer of $30,000.

However, for Ngerng's case, he is planning on raising up to $70,000 just to fund his legal fees to fight the defamation lawsuit that PM Lee filed against him.

This has drawn criticisms from some quarters.

An anonymous writer from anyhowhantam blog has written a lengthy post on Ngerng's lawsuit.

The writer questioned whether it was fair to raise funds to fight Ngerng's legal battle when he had the opportunity to settle a lawsuit, but refused.

The writer further claimed that it was Ngerng who instructed his lawyers to accept the "serving process" -- the formal presentation of the lawsuit.

It is not known whether Ngerng's donations, likely to exceed his target of $70,000, will be used to cover the aggravated damages if the court does rule in favour of PM Lee.

Top photo from thehearttruths.com. 

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