[shellfishgene]

"Over the following decades, Lee built a strong government that was backed by a competent and virtually corruption-free civil service..."

This part of the history, only mentioned in this one sentence, is the most interesting and relevant for other countries, and is really what sets Singapore apart from other countries in the region.

[Der_Einzige]

The idea that Singapore isn't corrupt is one of the biggest lies of all time.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62m7xrd2z0o

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/10/spanish-couple...

[filoleg]

Ok, I will bite.

What does detaining someone over an unlawful (per the written law) protest have anything to do with corruption?

Corruption involves bribes, selective enforcement of the law, unethical favoritism when it comes to legal decisions, "favors", etc.

Your links just describe people participating in a protest that was against the law on the books, and then that law being enforced upon them. You can call that specific law unfair, undemocratic, authoritarian, etc., but what's the corruption angle here?

[ImJamal]

I don't think you know what the definition of corruption is. According to Merriam Webster the definition is:

> a: dishonest or illegal behavior especially by powerful people (such as government officials or police officers) : depravity

> b: inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (such as bribery); the corruption of government officials

> c: a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct the corruption of a text; the corruption of computer files

> d: decay, decomposition; the corruption of a carcass

As far as I can tell the law was passed by the legislature, the police enforced the law, they weren't bribed to not enforce it or to enforce it.

Seems like the whole system worked correctly, legally and without corruption of any kind.

[HDThoreaun]

That's not corruption.

[rrvsh]

The corruption is not as blatant as you will see in other nations, and it works to make people believe the lie that its not corrupt, as you can see in the other thread in the replies to your comment.

The way corruption manifests in Singapore is legally and baked into the system - we are a city smaller than NYC but have _five_ mayors, none of which an average citizen can name or even have heard of having a mayor. Party politicians sit on the boards or occupy high C-suite positions of major companies and collect salary from all of them. Government politicians and high-ranking civil servants enjoy the best quality of life possible in Singapore, funded by taxpayer dollars, and barely have to do any work for it once they are in the position due to the single party system and only having to vote along party lines to keep it.