If you care about your fellow man help this guy!

[Castout]

The following is a PM I received from Mr. Gary Tan aka PothePanda
a Singaporean blogger who is now in trouble with the authority in Singapore. I plead in his behalf to help him in any way you can.


he is denied a trial on ground of mental illness and threatened with the possibility to be locked in the IMH(institution of mental health).


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They denied me trial and want to send me to IMH!


http://pothepanda.xanga.com/703923895/030609--police-abuse-in-singapore-exposed-imh-is-singapores-gulag/


By the way,i am in urgent need to see a psychiatrist now so that i can get an independent report done before i go to Court again.However i am short of funds and find it difficult to get a job in Singapore at the moment.
I am appealing for donations to be sent to my PayPal account at yangfengsg@hotmail.com.Please do assist if possible.
Thank You.
Kind Regards,


Gary Tan Yeong Hong
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[onelifecrisis]

Er, ban plz?
Oh, wait, registered 2006... 886 posts...
WTF? Is this real?

:hmmm:

Nah.
Ban plz!

[SteamWake]

Ive heard of this guy (potthepanda) but dont really know the entire story.

Still one has to be skeptical.

[Dowly]

Rrrriiiight.... send his arse to the gulag! :shucks:

[onelifecrisis]

Oh, heh, I didn't even check the link. I just saw "help, sob story, pay money here" and assumed the paypal account was Castout's. Sorry Castout.

[Jimbuna]

Skeptical and not entirely convinced :hmmm:

[Skybird]

Get realistic. If you are in the mood to help somebody, there is most likely one or several person needing various kinds of help within just two hundred meters around you, if you live in a city. No need to go to the other side of the planet first. Let the singaporean neighbourhood take care of this guy - if this story is true.

[onelifecrisis]

Get realistic. If you are in the mood to help somebody, there is most likely one or several person needing various kinds of help within just two hundred meters around you, if you live in a city. No need to go to the other side of the planet first.

:rotfl:

:rock:

Awesome post.

[Dowly]

SB has a valid point. :yep:

As for the original post, the case is real (you can find few things about it by googling). But then again, I cant see why he'd need money. To bribe the authorities to set him free? :O:

[Jimbuna]

SB has a valid point. :yep:

As for the original post, the case is real (you can find few things about it by googling). But then again, I cant see why he'd need money. To bribe the authorities to set him free? :O:

Send him a few bob and let us know the result :03:

[SteamWake]

SB has a valid point. :yep:

As for the original post, the case is real (you can find few things about it by googling). But then again, I cant see why he'd need money. To bribe the authorities to set him free? :O:

I dont know how things work in singapore but here in the US a legal defense can be an expensive proposition.

[FIREWALL]

Very noble Castout. :yep: :up:

[antikristuseke]

If you really want to help someone, buy me a hooker. I am drunk and horny, allso I promisse to share with Dowly so really, you will be helping two people.

[Dowly]

Sounds good! :haha::yeah:

[Castout]

Oh, heh, I didn't even check the link. I just saw "help, sob story, pay money here" and assumed the paypal account was Castout's. Sorry Castout.

No problem

Get realistic. If you are in the mood to help somebody, there is most likely one or several person needing various kinds of help within just two hundred meters around you, if you live in a city. No need to go to the other side of the planet first. Let the singaporean neighbourhood take care of this guy - if this story is true.

One Singapore is not a free country. The whole Singapore would stand idle watching this innocent person get locked up in mental institution without valid reason. There are people who are locked in Singapore prisons without trial longer than Nelson Mandela was.

SB has a valid point. :yep:

As for the original post, the case is real (you can find few things about it by googling). But then again, I cant see why he'd need money. To bribe the authorities to set him free? :O:

He is denied trial and instead accused to be mentally ill and faced with the possibility of being locked in mental institute against his free will. He's currently without job and needs the money to get an independent psychiatric report

I dont know how things work in singapore but here in the US a legal defense can be an expensive proposition.

The authority didn't like being critized by his blogs. He was interrogated over silly matter of of some psoting on the forum. While being there he received death threat from the police officer.

Gary: He said to me at the lift lobby 90% of the exact words - ”Mr Tan,if you walk out of here tomorrow,you might get killed.You might meet with a mysterious accident,you might disappear and nobody will know what happened to you! Mr Tan, some things and people in this country you cannot offend! Some people are above all things! You better make sure you know this! Mr Tan,we can arrange for things to happen to you.You understand or not!”

Now he's accused of shoplifting which they reported to have happened 1 year ago and lying about the receiving death threat from a police officer. But now he is denied trial and threatened to be locked in mental institution without valid reason.

Very noble Castout. :yep: :up:


I'm posting this not to get praises besides I haven't done anything much to save this guy.

I post his matters in singapore forum and all the thread disappeared within minutes of posting.
His youtube videos also seem to have disappeared.(type Pothepanda)

[Castout]

Send him a few bob and let us know the result :03:


Thanks Jimbuna. I will report whatever update I know.

[Castout]

For those who are still skeptical thinking the money would go to me

http://wayangparty.com/index.php?s=pothepanda

If you still think the money would go to me I don't know what else I can do to prove otherwise. I quote the PM I received from PothePanda
in my first post without changing anything.

Sending a dissident to the mental institution is now preferred than sending them to prison. Prisons make hero of dissidents. The mental institute will damage their reputation.


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Doc: only a qualified psychiatrist can make the clinical decision to admit a patient to IMH (http://wayangparty.com/?p=10078)

June 4, 2009 by admin (http://wayangparty.com/?author=1)
Filed under Daily Musings (http://wayangparty.com/?cat=4)

Comments Off


By Dr Albert Lin and Eugene Yeo
I was alerted to the plight of Mr Gary Tan by Eugene who emailed me to ask if a Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) has the right to admit a person to IMH on the grounds of a mental disorder.
According to a blog post by Mr Chia Ti Lik, the lawyer for Mr Gary Tan on 3 June 2009:
“DPP John Loo had instructions to apply for Gary to be remanded in the IMH for 3 weeks on the basis that he is delusional in his blog postings and that he had been allegedly remanded in IMH before in 2006.” (read article here (http://chiatilik.wordpress.com/2009/06/03/the-case-of-pothepanda-update/))
I never did a posting at IMH as a medical officer. My only knowledge about its modus operandi comes from friends who had done a posting there and as a MO at NUH A&E where we refer psychiatric cases to the psy MO on call pretty often.
To my limited understanding, IMH has a stringent set of criteria for admission. It has a A&E run 24 hours a day by a medical officer on call.
The few instances when admission is seriously considered are:
1. Patient is at high risk of suicide or deliberate self-harm if not admitted.
2. Acute psychosis where the patient is deemed to be a threat to the lives of himself and others.
3. Severe depression in which the patient refuses any food or drinks.
[We have a few readers here who are psychiatrists. Please feel free to contribute to the discussion]
The MO on call does not decide on the admission. He/she has to consult a senior doctor, usually a Registrar who has passed his Masters in Medicine (M.MED) examination in Psychiatry to determine if the case warrants an admission.
The majority of patients residing at IMH are chronic schizophrenics who are incapable of self-care or are abandoned by their families.
IMH now prefers to discharge the stable schizophrenics back to the community where they can be close with families and friends so as to facilitate their re-integration into society.
The reasons cited by DPP John Loo for remanding Mr Gary Tan at IMH are not clinical decisions and neither are they justifications for admission.
In the first place, DPP John Loo is not medically trained in psychiatry to diagnose Mr Gary Tan as having a delusional disorder based on his blog postings alone. Even a family physician like me will have to refer him to a psychiatrist for further evaluation.
Furthermore, delusional disorder is not a criteria for admission to IMH unless it can be established that the patient is a danger onto himself and others as a result of his delusion. A previous admission to IMH was never a criteria to determine if the patient requires an admission which is based solely on the result of the psychiatric examination at the point in time.
In this case where Gary’s mental fitness to plead is of suspect, he can be referred for a psychiatric evaluation which can be completed within a day where a psychiatrist can determine if he needs to be remanded on clinical grounds.
Based on the information provided by Mr Chia, I can only conclude that the Attorney-General Chambers may have a prior arrangement with IMH to remand suspects of “unsound mind” which are beyond the jurisdiction of their in-house psychiatrists.
This arbitrary confinement of suspects at IMH has the double effect of casting doubts on their mental capacity and preventing their side of the story to be heard at an open trial in court.
Besides Gary, there are other high profile cases where the suspect is remanded at IMH without going to trial.
In January 2009, Ong Kar Chua was remanded at IMH for torching PAP MP Seng Han Thong. He was never charged in court, his defence was not heard and Singaporeans may never know the real motives behind his act.
Boon Suan Ban, a stock remisier from Hwang-DBS Group, was sentenced to be detained in Institude of Mental Health until it pleases the president, as a result of his financial disputes involving Chief Justice Yong Pung How.
Mr Robert Ho, had been detained in Institude of Mental Health several times. Robert is a writer and internet activist, who whistle-blowed about the alleged polling fraud during General Election 1997, at hot contested Cheng San GRC.
We need to take the government to task and to hold them accountable for their actions:
1. Do the AGC, DPP or District Court have the power to order the detention of persons at IMH without the input of a psychiatrist?
2. What rights do these detainees have?
3. What does this say about the rule of law in Singapore?
The apparent arbitariness exhibited by the authorities in ordering the detention of persons at IMH with little transparency or accountability leaves much to be desired and leave citizens at the mercy of an all-powerful government.
Don’t dismiss the PothePanda case as an isolated incident which does not concern you for as long the existing laws are not changed, it may happen to you or me one day and we will have no revenues to seek legal redress.
Singaporeans must be educated on their basic human rights and to call on the police to shed more light on how the internal decision-making process to determine if a person should be remanded at IMH.
Are we a modern democracy or a police state like Burma and North Korea where political dissidents can be made to “disappear” from society without a fuss?


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