Activist Jolovan Wham, one of four Singaporeans, besides historian PJ Thum, activist Kirsten Han, and cartoonist Sonny Liew who met with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, has written a series of Facebook posts defending himself against the criticism of the visit.

Among the four posts was a lengthy one defending the freedom of an activist to lobby foreign governments to pressure the local government.

Wham also sided with Thum who came under the flak when he shared a Facebook post of him with Mahathir.

The post came with the following caption:

"I met with Malaysian Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir today. I urged him to take leadership in Southeast Asia for the promotion of democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, and freedom of information. I also expressed hopes for closer relations between the people of Malaysia and Singapore, and presented him with a copy of “Living with Myths in Singapore".

Marine Parade GRC Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng then said Thum was inviting "Dr M to bring democracy to Singapore."

Commenting on the meeting, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam said:

"I think the whole conduct is a little sad, a bit regretful. We can have political differences within Singapore - it is the people’s right ... We should never go out and invite someone foreign, a foreign politician to intervene in our domestic politics. I think that is an absolute no-no."

Wham's defence

On his meeting with Mahathir, Wham said that it was "pretty clear" to him that the "Singapore government and the political establishment would not be happy with this meeting."

He went on to say: "But what I do on my seditious vacation is really none of their business."

On the accusation that Thum had invited foreign interference, when "PJ urged Dr M to promote democracy and human rights in South East Asia", Wham first noted Shanmugam's point that Singapore was part of Southeast Asia.

Wham then said:

"Now, lobbying an overseas politician on political and civil rights in your country is nothing new. Activists all over the world do it. The most recent example that comes to mind is Hong Kong occupy activists lobbying politicians in the UK and US. International political pressure IS part of activism."

Wham moved on to specifically reference Seah's point that Thum had supposedly asked Mahathir to bring democracy to Singapore:

"Even if PJ had asked Mahathir to 'bring democracy to Singapore', instead of South East Asia, what's wrong with that? One may question his choice of person to lobby but that is a purely strategic question, and has nothing to do with 'foreign interference' or subversion. Real interference is when a foreign government tries to rig election results, or breaks into your systems and tries to manipulate information and data."

Following that first lengthy post, the Straits Times published an article reporting off Wham's comments.

Wham shared the article and further augmented his earlier point about intervention using South Africa's Apartheid as an example:

"When South Africa was under apartheid, South African activists and those from elsewhere urged international political leaders to uphold the rights of the victims of racial segregation. In ASEAN, activists from Myanmar urged foreign leaders to use their influence to install democracy in Myanmar and release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest when it was still ruled by the military junta."

In reaction to Wham's remarks, former Ambassador Bilahari Kausikan shared a netizens' post that pointed out the contradictions between Wham's public statements and the statements by Thum and Han (due to privacy settings preventing us from embedding it, we reproduced it in text):

"What’s wrong with asking foreigners to intervene in our country?

Jolovan Wham finally comes clean about why he, PJ Thum, Kirsten Han, Sonny Liew and Tan Wah Piow met Dr Mahathir.

It took a while.

After their meeting, PJ Thum put up a Facebook post, saying he had urged Dr Mahathir to take leadership in Southeast Asia to promote democracy and other political causes.

Tan Wan Piow also told reporters that he hoped Malaysia can influence Singapore.

Tan and Thum also invited Dr Mahathir to speak at a conference in Singapore on promoting democracy in Southeast Asia.

Quite clear what they were trying to do.

Kirsten Han, Jolovan Wham and Sonny Liew did not want to be named as having attended the meeting. Somewhat ironic for Wham and Han, as freedom of information advocates. But it came out anyway.

When MP Seah Kian Peng called Thum and his associates out, Kirsten Han leapt to his defence. She said Thum was talking about Southeast Asia but not Singapore. Good try, Ms Han, pull the other one.

But Thum blows up Han’s defence, by putting up a post where he makes clear he was in fact talking about Singapore, posting on Facebook that Singaporeans should learn from other countries.

We also know now that Thum had in the past called for Singapore to be part of Malaya, instead of an independent, sovereign country.

And today we see the final act from Jolovan Wham.

He just posted on Facebook, saying “what’s wrong” with Thum asking Dr Mahathir to bring democracy to Singapore. For good measure he also argued we should not object to foreign intervention, and that “international political pressure is part of activism”.

So, after days of twisting and turns, we have the truth.

Singaporeans can judge for themselves what these individuals stand for, and how they’ve conducted themselves."

Here are Wham's posts in full:

https://www.facebook.com/jolovan.wham/posts/10156709995979810?__xts__[0]=68.ARAjkA5Z6fJXke4_mQ9D5mTDIVBvGurd4aFcVIKRwdU7VUB-JhKBYG_RBr3_lcnTImGnujAVb6RDVqI9Eyj9il8CthHU8nSMucyWpvwbWaLiC6FeuPf4joC0pSeQfz6VJzJ4SHuCR4193-meNnwcQWoS7P1VI3OKdMTHj0DRYMeDa6vdQmOuEzk&__tn__=-Rhttps://www.facebook.com/jolovan.wham/posts/10156710268779810

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Top image from Jolovan Wham's Facebook page