I'm not sure that a recorded video would have been the same. The source for the techcrunch article says:

> The Singapore Police Force in an earlier statement, said that Wham had organised an indoor public assembly featuring a foreign speaker, which required a Police permit.

Although given that political films are also banned, maybe a prerecorded video would have been illegal under a different law.

The problem is the intent of the gathering, not that it had a foreign speaker. (Not that I agree with the law, but that's what it says.)

And? Some laws are stupid and must be broken.

If you don't like a law, change it, don't break it and get yourself in trouble.

This is basically the difference between East Asian cultures and Western/American culture. We value a balance of order and individual rights, you guys value individual rights over all.

It is funny how in these kinds of discusions it is always "you guys have excesive amount of A and not enought of B, whilst we have a perfect balace of A and B" instead of "you value A more than we do, but we like B more".

Individual rights are just that -- not rights, not privileges and thus not subject to debate, thought they are of course frequently violated by totalitarian states to a greater or a somewhat lesser degree.

I know this is controversial, because the current rule is that you are not supposed to say that your moral system is right and the other guys system is wrong, but A is A and Freedom is not slavery, no matter how much that is yelled from the tops of mountains.

For a bit of historical perspective, this was the same criticism made of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. Good thing MLK didn't try to follow your advice.

How does that work when the law forbids you from assembling to effect political change?

Ah, I was wondering how Skype played a role. So there's no reason it shows up in the title.