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)

No, just being literal.Johnm307 (talk) 12:17, 2 October 2010 (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)

You're doing original research there. The only question relevant here is, what, if anything, should go into the article about Fay's co-accuseds. There certainly were allegations of coercion but they remain allegations only. As for your statement that "Fay was abused and framed", that is purely your opinion, of which there is absolutely no proof, and has no place here. Alarics (talk) 07:34, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

What I argued was hardly original. All the facts established that Fay was terrorized into confessing and pleading guilty. Making someone confess is frame-up in the same sense that planting blood or fingerprints is frame-up -- evidence is fabricated and used against him. Either abuse occurred in the case, or it didn't. We've established that abuse occurred in the case, because one person confessed to crimes committed while he was outside the country, and another got his eardrum ruptured. There's no reasonable argument that goes like this: "Sure, we abused those two to make them confess. That doesn't mean we abused Michael Fay." Johnm307 (talk) 03:27, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

And of course, we have the fact that it took them a week or more to persuade Michael Fay to confess and plead guilty.Johnm307 (talk) 03:29, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

You are still doing "original research", a technical term in Wikipedia that means constructing your own hypothesis from assorted facts (or alleged facts). Please read the rules at WP:OR. The article already notes that Fay said his confession was false and that he later claimed to have been ill-treated under questioning. You may, if you wish, deduce for yourself that those claims seem likely to be true, but that is not enough to be able to state them as verified facts in an encyclopaedia article. Alarics (talk) 10:25, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

The article only mentions Fay's claim that the confession was false in passing. If Fay was indeed terrorized into confessing and pleading guilty, this should be the primary focus of the article. The facts surrounding the case strongly indicate coercion, and any competent and honest article would indicate so. If the argument I'm making is "original research," find a way to tell the accurate story without "original research."

It seems to me that the rule against "original research" imposes a huge bias in certain circumstances. For example, if we are allowed to say that Jill confessed to a crime committed at 3:00am, July 30, 2007 in New York City, and she happened to be in Los Angeles at that time, it would be "original research" to conclude that her confession was false.Johnm307 (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Just because it took someone a while to confess has no direct implication of guilt or otherwise. Do note that statements made by the defendent is inherently biased in his favour. However if you do evidence or facts by established 3rd party sources showing his innocence, do quote these sources for these "Facts". If they fulfill WP:RS, feel free to add them in the main article. Else your conjuncture and deduction still falls within the domain of WP:OR.DanS76 (talk) 10:40, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, taking over a week to make someone confess means that he didn't want to confess and had to be persuaded somehow or other -- or at least he was giving up on not confessing. Also note that Fay was stuck in an environment controlled by the interrogators. The interrogators control the environment, they control the witnesses, they control the information. The burden of proof should be on them. The only information we can possibly have is victim statements and environmental events seen afterwards. If a boy and an interrogator are stuck by themselves in a dark room in the back of a police station, the boy can't do anything to verify his account, while the interrogators have every means. The boy's statements should be presumed true; let the interrogator disprove them. (If the boy is lying and is believed, it's the interrogator's fault. Maybe the next time the interrogator will know to videotape the interrogation.)

We have Fay's own statement. We have the extended time of interrogation, after which he confessed to everything they wanted him to confess to. (In fact, confession after hours of continued integration mean coercion is highly probable.) Assuming these can be adequately verified, we have a fellow defendant's eardrum ruptured. We have the well-known "aircon room." We have another fellow defendant confessing to crimes committed while he was out of the country. We have Fay confessing to a crime committed while he was playing football (or soccer). We have apartment doormen (?) saying that he never returned home with any signs of spray paint. Finally, we have numerous claims made all over, about coercive and violent interrogation by the Singapore police.

The only thing I am willing to concede is the need to adequately source and verify these claims. There comes a point when it is ridiculous to pretend that Fay voluntarily confessed and pleaded guilty.Johnm307 (talk) 15:38, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

You still seem not to understand, or else you are simply saying you do not wish to follow, Wikipedia's rule against "original research". We have to abide by that rule and there is no point at all in your arguing about it here. You are putting forward your own unverified hypothesis based on unproven assertions made by the defendant in the case. You can go and publish a magazine article or book setting out your own personal theories, but they cannot be part of an objective encyclopaedia article. Alarics (talk) 16:18, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe presenting information and suggesting the conclusion is "original research" but presenting the information and letting the information itself suggest the conclusion is not. Furthermore by your standard of "original research," Wikipedia has numerous examples of "original research". Any form of logical conclusion qualifies; you see it in math articles. (An example is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instanton#Instantons, where they do math work without citing anything for the steps.) (You didn't object to my example of "original research" above.)

Find some way to present the evidence without doing "original research." Or otherwise, redefine Wikipedia's definition of "original research" to allow for commonsense conclusions.151.213.185.138 (talk) 18:41, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

The above was me, by the way.Johnm307 (talk) 18:42, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

Your Maths examples isn't a good example at all, it only further points out the the need for a good reliable neutral source. In case you did not notice it, there is a list of cited references the bottom of the article from which the steps are obviously derived. Though the bad example you identified does go a long way towards explaining why you cannot get yourself clear exactly on what is OR, and why its not allowed.DanS76 (talk) 16:48, 19 September 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)