SG50
50 Years of Singapore Pride
MICHAEL FAY
VS
THE LAW
"This punishment is extreme,
and we hope very much that
somehow it will be reconsidered"
US President Bill Clinton
On Michael Fay's sentence
"Recipients often faint by the third stroke. When they do, the caning is stopped until they are revived. Bits of flesh are said to fly with each strike, along with copious amounts of blood. The healing takes weeks; the scarring is forever."
- Corpun.com,. 'USA Today, 5 April 1994: Don't Copy Singapore'. Web. 10 June 2015.
However, on 5 May 1994, President Ong Teng Cheong reduced the caning sentence from six to four strokes after considerable diplomatic pressure from the United States.
Michael Fay was an 18-year-old student at the Singapore-American School was arrested by police in 1993 for vandalism. He was sentenced in 1994 to six months in jail and six strokes of the cane. The punishment caused massive public uproar in the United States. The news of how Fay was caned was widely misreported internationally, as seen on the left.
"I am grateful for the reduction, but it does not make it any different for him. If this is their idea of helping, it does not do that at all."
- Michael Fay's mother, in a 5 May 1994 report in the Washington Post. (http://www.corpun.com/sgju9405.htm#3693, accessed 10 June 2015)
In 2010, a Swiss national Oliver Fricker and his friend were arrested for vandalising an MRT train. Fricker was sentenced to five months in jail and three strokes of the cane. However, there was no public outcry in Switzerland like there had been in the United States.