Singapore slams Li Shengwu over New York Times’ ‘How Tyranny Begins’ video

A widely shared New York Times video on “tyranny” in four countries featuring the grandson of Singapore’s founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew has drawn the ire of the city state’s government, with its envoy to the US saying Li Shengwu is “masquerading as a persecuted dissident”.

The opinion video, titled How Tyranny Begins, was circulated on social media platforms and forums soon after its publication last Wednesday.

Besides Li, the nephew of Singapore Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, the five-minute clip featured three others – a journalist, activist and academic from Russia, Nicaragua and Hungary, respectively – who shared their experiences with repressive regimes.

The speakers discussed how Russian President Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary and Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega had consolidated absolute power.

For his part in the video, Li says tyranny starts not with the “stuffing of ballot boxes” but with “retribution”, accusing Senior Minister Lee of using police and criminal prosecution to “dispose of or exile his opponents”.

Li also recounts that he was given a fine over a social media post that was shared only with friends. “I fled the country as soon as I could,” Li says in the clip.