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The son of the late Lee Kuan Yew, the modern-day founder of Singapore, has quietly been granted political asylum in Britain, in an implicit condemnation of the civil liberties offered by the city-state.
Lee Hsien Yang, together with his wife, Lee Suet Fern, a lawyer, have overcome objections from the UK’s Home Office to win refugee status in Britain, having successfully argued that they would face persecution if they were to return to Singapore.
The couple have been in self-imposed exile in London since 2022 following a criminal investigation by the Singaporean authorities and an accompanying threat of being charged with perjury.
A dynastic feud burst into public view after the death of Lee Kuan Yew in 2015, with Lee Hsien Yang and his sister, Lee Wei Ling, battling their elder brother, Lee Hsien Loong, who spent 20 years as prime minister, over the future of the famous family home in Singapore, at 38 Oxley Road.
That dispute is likely to flare once more after Lee Wei Ling’s death earlier this month, at the age of 69, following a long illness, because she lived at the house. During his lifetime, Lee Kuan Yew had repeatedly stated that once his children had moved out of the family home, the property should be demolished to avoid it becoming a shrine to himself. Lee Hsien Yang wanted his wishes enforced, but other family members disagreed.
In response to inquiries over the asylum move this week, the Singapore authorities released a 5,000-word statement, repeating claims that Lee Suet Fern had tampered with the final draft of Lee Kuan Yew’s will in order to reinstate a “demolition clause” regarding 38 Oxley Road and also carve out a larger portion of the estate for her husband.
Lee Wei Ling, an accomplished doctor who established the National Neuroscience Institute in the former British colony, diagnosed herself with progressive supranuclear palsy in 2020.
Her death was announced by Lee Hsien Yang on Facebook, with her younger brother immediately calling afresh for the demolition of 38 Oxley Road.
Lee Hsien Loong, who stepped aside as prime minister earlier this year but who remains a senior minister, responded on Facebook, saying: “I held nothing against Ling, and continued to do whatever I could to ensure her welfare,” adding that she was “fiercely loyal to friends, sympathised instinctively with the underdog, and would mobilise actively to do something when she saw unfairness, or suspected wrongdoing”.
In seeking political asylum in Britain, Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern are understood to have successfully argued that their brother Lee Hsien Loong has used the organs of state against their wing of the family to block any chance that their son, Li Shengwu, might enter politics in Singapore and one day rise to the position of prime minister.
Li Shengwu, an economist who has adopted a different English spelling of the family name, was recently granted tenure at Harvard University, where he is a professor. He has denied having any interest in pursuing a political career, but nevertheless considers himself to be exiled from Singapore.
Singapore’s legal system, particularly its libel laws frequently used by Lee Kuan Yew and his successors, has long made life difficult for the political opponents of the Singapore government and for the media.
In its statement, the Singapore government insisted that Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern, along with their son, “are and have always been free to return to Singapore”, adding that the city state’s judiciary is impartial and makes decisions independently.
It added: “As the Government has stated on many occasions, in Parliament and elsewhere, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong has long recused himself on all matters relating to 38 Oxley Road,” adding that while Lee Kuan Yew “preferred demolition, he was also willing to consider other options such as refurbishing and redesigning the interior”.
Posting on Facebook, Lee Hsien Yang said: “In 2017, my sister Wei Ling and I declared, ‘We do not trust Hsien Loong as a brother or as a leader.’ We stated that we feared the abuse of the organs of the Singapore state against us and against my family. Because of that risk, I was unable to attend Wei Ling’s funeral.”
He said the Singapore government’s attacks against him were a matter of public record. “On the basis of these facts, the UK has determined that I face a well-founded risk of persecution, and cannot safely return to Singapore.”
While the figures are low compared with more troubled parts of the world, data from the UN refugee agency UNHCR shows a marked rise in the number of Singapore nationals seeking asylum elsewhere, a trend that Singapore’s critics put down to the authoritarian nature of the city-state’s government.
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