Talk:Caning of Michael Fay

Huge amounts of bias. i replaced all reference to the 'yew regime' with the phrase 'Singapore Government', and removed the word dictator.

article vandalized again with the usual 'yew regime' phrases showing up, reverted to prior version before the vandalism. --R4ge 18:26, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

The section "U.S. v. Singapore: A view based on comparative law" does not belong here, for the this article is about that kid that got caned. A section about comparative law not directly pertaining to the issue at hand is no more relevant than a section talking about "International Law" would be under an article about Herman Goering.--Bletch 21:52, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I agree. This section was a speculative tangent. --Twinxor 21:58, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The 'The Singaporean response' is probably not from a NPV.

Other places of residence

I just wanted to add here that sometime in the late 1980s/early 1990s Fay lived with his father (?) in Naperville, Illinois. I so happen to have his freshman yearbook photograph - in the same book as my own! --JohnDBuell 01:19, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

sex —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.9.1 (talk) 07:06, 30 April 2007 (UTC).

'Felt'

A weasel word and used twice in the same paragraph about the Singapore government's response to the American government's reaction. Instead you should mention exactly what the Singaporean government stated, not what you think the government (or anybody else) 'felt'. I have doubts that the government perceived Clinton's actions as being anything other than a usual appeal for clemency that governments routinely issue on behalf of their citizens abroad (certainly no demarche was issued, and irony-free Singapore wouldn't suggest that the US should start criticising all verdicts delivered in Singaporean criminal courts for the sake of consistency)

Aftermath

The section "Aftermath" quotes: The Michael Fay incident was followed by another incident where a Filipino maid named Flor Contemplacion was convicted of the murder of her employer's son and another maid and subsequently executed. The case sparked outrage in the Philippines and highlighted the plight of Filipinos working in Singapore. Other than being in Singapore, how is this 'aftermath' of this incident? --Achromatic 23:37, 26 Jan 2006 (UTC)

Agreed and removed. --Vsion 23:47, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The portions of the "Aftermath" section pertaining to Weird Al, etc., would make much more sense under a section entitled "Pop Culture References" or something as they are trivial and not directly related.

American Media Calls for Attacks on Embassy

I don't remember anyone calling for an attack on the Singapore embassy. Even if one nutjobs talk radio guy did say such a thing, that hardly makes it "the American media." This needs to get cited, or removed. 65.171.232.28 14:13, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I removed that sentence; the rest of the section seems to be valid, but I added a "unreferenced" tag. --Vsion 15:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

References and cited sources

Unfortunately I am in a medium sized city in Taiwan, but if anyone is still a university student with access to a large university library, could that person search for the references that I listed and fill in the source needed footnotes? I would have done it if I were living in Berkeley. Allentchang 13:42, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Van Nguyen Link?

Why on earth is there a link to Van Tuong Nguyen on this page? Van Nguyen shares no similarities with Michael Fay, other than the fact that they were both arrested in Singapore. I would remove the link, but I'd rather bring up the issue here first to see what others' opinions are.

Nguyen was arrested and executed for drug smuggling, as opposed to Fay, who was arrested and caned for vandalism. Unless we're going to provide a link to every foreigner who has been caned/executed in Singapore, the Van Nguyen link doesn't belong. 61.68.35.146 04:47, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

just remove it. Uucp 14:58, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Ummmmmm... Why'd someone vandalize the page? That's really immature.

address

If it helps Michael Fay lived on the 21st floor of Regency Park Condo on nathan road, and led police there following his arrest (in which 25 police officers arrived at the Singapore American School). police found road signs and a taxi "not for hire" sign in his bedroom. My source is a book called “Singapore – The State and the culture of excess” by Souchou Yao. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 218.186.9.1 (talk) 10:01, 22 March 2007 (UTC).

NPOV and Tone

This does not sound like an encyclopedic entry, specifically the part where it says, "The paper printed this information. How can they not be facts if the newspaper printed it? It's the official paper of the government." Or something to that effect.

I believe a lot of this article should be re-edited, if not just chalked up and rewritten entirely. Is there anyone with a definite wealth of information on this topic? --lepetiterobot 13:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

there is a POV-y editor who seems to want to use the page to argue that Fay was the victim of a massive Singaporean conspiracy, or something. I have reverted the edits, again. Uucp 14:53, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Could it have been anything other than a massive conspiracy? An agreement among hundreds if not thousands to torture him, to disregard the virtual certainty of innocence, that he was brutally coerced into confessing, that he was tortured as punishment for a crime like spraypainting? (See my entry under "coerced".)--Johnm307 (talk) 15:43, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Are you being satirical? -- Alarics (talk) 20:42, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Coerced?

Fay claimed in an interview on one of the major television news magazines (possibly ABC's 20/20) that he did not actually vandalize the cars and his confession was coerced. He alleged that the police used some extreme tactics to extract confessions. He also said that his legal counsel did not believe his sentence would include caning if he pled guilty, otherwise he would not have done so (the plea was in effect a plea of 'no contest' rather than an admission of guilt). If this can be adequately sourced it should probably be in the article. --Mwalimu59 21:05, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, he said something to that effect in his Larry King interview. I have mentioned this in the article and added a link. Alarics (talk) 12:24, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

I think that there should be a section on the other persons arrested and charged in the same case, or at least a discussion of those. For example, there were allegations that one Malaysian teenager had his eardrum ruptured during the interrogation, and that another American teenager, Stephen Freehill had confessed to crimes committed while he was out of the country. Freehill was allowed to plead to far reduced charges, with only a fine as punishment. If these allegations can be credibly sourced, they should be included in this article, as they confirm Fay's allegations of brutal coercion of confession.Johnm307 (talk) 21:21, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

No, they don't. There may be a case for mentioning those other persons, but it would not prove anything about the Fay case. -- Alarics (talk) 20:40, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

On the contrary, if others were confirmed abused or coerced to confess falsely in the same case, it does confirm his story. It would be a massive coincidence otherwise -- you think that the only abuse to occur would be the abuse that's exposed -- the two cases above? Do you think that abusers would only abuse if they were caught? Police as suicidally stupid criminals? No. If someone was abused in the Fay case, it makes it far more likely that Fay was abused as well.

It's also a simple problem in probability theory: the probability that Fay was abused given that abuse occurred is greater than the prior (unconditioned) probability that he was abused. Notation: FA = "Fay abused", A="Someone abused," and ~means not.

P(FA) = P(FA & A) + P(FA & ~A) = P(FA | A) P(A) + P(FA | ~A) P(~A) = P(FA|A) P(A) because P(FA | ~A) absolutely has to be zero.

So P(FA | A) = P(FA)/P(A)

Face it. Fay was abused and framed by the Singaporean police. Concluding anything else is high gullibility.Johnm307 (talk) 06:54, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Weasel words?

Part of the article says "Under what some might regard as the misapplication of the 1966 Singapore Vandalism Act, which was originally passed to curb the spread of communist graffiti in Singapore and which specifically covered vandalism of government buildings,".

Is that not a form of weasel wording? Quite aside from that, the article on the Act (follow the link on this article), while referring to public buildings goes onto say "Furthermore, any damages to private property are illegal under the Act without the written consent of the owner or occupier." Obviously, different authors have written the two parts I have quoted, but I still wonder whether this article requires reconsideration.Informed Owl (talk) 16:22, 7 December 2008 (UTC)Informed Owl

Notable enough

This person is really notable due to canning incident in Singapore happened in 1993-94. This was the worst ever happened in Singapore history. ApprenticeFan ^{talk contribs} 02:48, 13 April 2010 (UTC)