A Writ of Summons along with a Statement of Claim has been served by Davinder Singh Chambers LLC on behalf of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to Terry Xu, Chief Editor of The Online Citizen.
The documents were served on Thursday (September 5), 3.51pm at Xu’s place of residence.
Yesterday, the publication released a statement refusing to comply with a letter of demand that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong issued earlier this week.
On Sunday (September 1), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) issued a letter to the editor of TOC, demanding that the website apologise and remove an article and Facebook post repeating allegations PM Lee’s sister Lee Wei Ling made during the Lee family feud in 2017.
The letter put forth PM Lee’s request that TOC immediately remove the article and Facebook post by Wednesday (September 4) and publish a “full and unconditional apology” along with an undertaking that it would not publish similar allegations in the future.
The letter warned that “PM Lee will have no choice but to hand the matter over to his lawyers to sue to enforce his full rights in law” if TOC did not comply.
In his letter, Xu refused a take-down of the article saying that he is “of the opinion that the contents of the Article are not defamatory” and that he was “merely republishing” the words uttered by the PM’s siblings.
Xu wrote that he believes that the contents of the article “constitute fair comment.”
PM Lee’s statement of claim finds fault with an article published on TOC, “PM Lee’s wife, Ho Ching weirdly shares article on cutting ties with family members”, stating that the article contained statements that are false and baseless and were calculated to disparage and impugn PM Lee as well as his office as the Prime Minister.
Xu has 8 days to enter an appearance to defend the claim by PM Lee.
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