LONDON (AP) — Singapore has become much more repressive and corruption in the Asian financial hub has worsened in the decade since the death of former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, according to his youngest son, who fled to Britain to seek asylum. of what was described as a campaign of persecution to silence him.

Lee Hsien Yang, who has been He was granted political refugee status in the United Kingdom, told The Associated Press that Singapore authorities have “weaponized” the country’s laws against its critics and that he is just the most prominent example of a growing number of Singaporeans fleeing abroad to seek protection of his own government.

Lee cited a tightening of laws on security and assembly rights and a sharp rise in the number of asylum seekers from the city-state over the past decade under the government of his estranged brother, Lee Hsien Loong, who was prime minister until who resigned earlier this year.

“Singapore has this veneer that pretends to be some kind of prosperous, democratic and free country. The veneer is quite thin,” he said in an interview in London on Monday. “Underneath that there is a repressive nature to that regime and there are people fleeing it.”

Singapore’s government reacted strongly on Thursday, accusing Lee of turning a “personal vendetta into an international smear campaign against his father, his family and his country.”

He said Lee had alleged in his asylum application that he and his family were being persecuted by the Singapore government to prevent his son, Li Shengwu, from becoming prime minister.

“That he has gone so far as to allege this – even though his son has repeatedly said he has no such ambition – shows that his campaign against Singapore is not based on principles,” he said.

Lee announced last week that he was forced to seek asylum due to what he called baseless criminal proceedings, defamation and surveillance against him and his wife by Singapore authorities led by his brother.

Human Rights Watch says Singapore silenced dissenting voices in its recent elections and expressed concern about the aggressive enforcement of a sweeping “online falsehoods” law that it said allows officials to censor online content.

Allegations of state persecution

The Lee brothers have been at odds since They quarreled over their late father’s will..

Lee Kuan Yewwho died in 2015, was feared for his authoritarian tactics and admired around the world for turning the city-state into one of the richest nations in the world. He stepped away from power in 1990, but remained influential behind the scenes for many years afterward.

A court found that Lee Hsien Yang and his wife lied under oath and deceived his father during the preparation of his will, which they helped draft. Lee said his son was prosecuted for criticizing the judiciary in a Facebook post. Lee himself lost a defamation suit last year and was ordered to pay damages to two government ministers he claimed were corrupt over the rental of state property. He said last month that he paid the amount, so the family home in his name will not be seized.

Lee called the actions against him “false, abusive and unjustified” and said the campaign of persecution intensified after he joined Singapore’s opposition party in 2020. Lee said he and his wife left hastily in June 2022 and decided to request political asylum in the United Kingdom because they believed they needed protection.

“Many people claim that this is a family dispute. Well, the actions taken against me were taken by state bodies,” he said.

“In a tightly controlled country like Singapore, where my brother was prime minister and controlled power, there is no way these things could happen without his knowledge, his consent and his agreement,” he added.

Financial scandals with international connections.

Lee further alleged that Singapore banks and companies have been linked to a growing number of international corruption and money laundering scandals in recent years.

Last year, Singapore authorities seized $1.75 billion in assets, including gold bars, alcohol bottles, cars and luxury properties, and arrested nine Chinese nationals in a massive money laundering case that involve funds raised through illegal means abroad.

Lee cited other examples, including the participation of Singapore banks in the Malaysian state development fund 1MDB corruption scandaland two companies linked to the Singapore government that operate in Brazil’s oil and gas industry and were allegedly involved in Brazil’s radical “Operation Lava Jato” anti-corruption investigation.

Lee said the cases and increasing repression showed that his city has deteriorated, although he also acknowledged that the lack of political freedoms was a vestige of his father’s decades-long leadership, during which the resource-poor former British colony transformed into a prosperous financial center with low crime. and almost zero corruption.

“Singapore has retained laws and punishments that come from a different era,” he said. “My father was a product of that time, but I think if he were alive today, some of those things might well have changed.”

Human Rights Watch said last year that Singapore carried out the highest number of executions for drug crimes in more than a decade.

The Singapore government said that all examples of alleged corruption cited by Lee have been thoroughly addressed, either through the courts or in Parliament. He said Singapore has not wavered in its anti-corruption stance, pointing to the country’s high standing in international perceptions of corruption and its recent indictment of a former cabinet minister on corruption charges and strong controls to detect, deter and prosecute financial crimes.

He called Lee “a major beneficiary of the Singapore system” and noted that he had freely participated in politics by joining an opposition party during the 2020 election.

Lee “is not a victim of persecution. He and his wife remain citizens. They are and always have been free to return to Singapore,” the government said.

Lee declined to comment on whether he saw a role for himself as opposition leader. But he said he intended to continue “speaking his mind” about Singapore politics despite his concerns about fresh attempts to silence him.

“I have no doubt that every time I do so, I risk further attacks by the Singapore authorities,” he said. “I believe the day will come when things will change. I hope it happens in my lifetime and that one day I can return home.”

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Associated Press writer Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, contributed to this report.