Alright, Daddy is a dirty old spanko--and knowing that, you know that the Michael Fay story was a seminal event for me.
1994, at the tail end of the ABC national news, Peter Jennings says that an American teenager is facing judicial caning in Singapore. It was just that--no photo, no film, but it was enough...
Now this was a couple of years before the first computer came into my life, so I was poised at the edge of my seat when the news came on the next night. And there it was, Michael's picture, that young, foolish face.I was hooked, and visions of bamboo canes danced in my head.
I became a hollow-eyed addict of the tabloid shows, gobbling up every morsel of the lengthy appeals. His blustering mother, his whiny father, Clinton's interfering. I wrote to Michael in his prison cell--doubt he ever got it and he wouldn't have liked it if he did;I told him he had it coming tho I wished him good luck with his future life...
I even wrote to the Prime Minister of Singapore, urging him to stand tall and ignore American Squeamishness...
I ate up the coverage of the California state senator who called for corporal punishment of graffiti vandals. And when a local man announced that he was going to stage a public demonstration of how a boy should be caned, I almost went--of course it was a stunt, the fellow presented the boy with a bamboo fishing pole and rhapsodized about Andy Griffith...
And then came the day, May 5, 1994, twenty-one years ago today. I'd grumped at the sentence reduction, from six strokes to four, and half-way expected some last-minute disappointment, but there it was, on the late local news!
Sentence carried out! Mikey back in his cell, lesson learned and bottom burning, stripes to remember it by. I danced a little jig around the living room...
Ah, well, that was a long time ago. Mike got out of jail, came home, did Larry King. The anticipated TV Movie never was made, and Mike vanished,save for reports of arrests for glue-sniffing and weed-smoking. Where he is is today is unknown, and I do wish him well. And every May 5th I will have my own little private celebration of Michael Fay Day, and dedicate a bruised bottom in his name.
Thanks for the memories!
Michael P. Fay
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other people named Michael Fay, see Michael Fay (disambiguation).
| Michael P. Fay | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 30, 1975 St. Louis, Missouri, United States |
| Parent(s) | George and Randy Fay |
Contents
Early life
Michael Fay was born in St. Louis, Missouri.[2] His mother Randy divorced his father, George, when he was eight.[2] As a child, Michael was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, a fact which his lawyer would later claim made Fay not responsible for his actions.[3]Although Fay mostly lived with his father after the divorce, he later moved to Singapore to live with his mother and his stepfather, Marco Chan, and was enrolled in the Singapore American School.[2]
Theft and vandalism
In October 1993, The Straits Times, Singapore's main English-language newspaper, reported that car vandalism in Singapore was on the rise.[4] Cars parked at apartment blocks were being damaged with hot tar, paint remover, red spray paint, and hatchets. Taxi drivers complained that their tires were slashed. In the city center, cars were found with deep scratches and dents. One man complained that he had to refinish his car six times in six months.[4]The police eventually arrested a 16-year-old suspect, Andy Shiu Chi Ho from Hong Kong. He was not caught vandalizing cars, but was charged with driving his father's car without a license. After questioning Shiu, the police questioned several expatriate students from the Singapore American School, including Fay, and charged them with more than fifty counts of vandalism.[4] Fay pleaded guilty to vandalizing the cars in addition to stealing road signs. He later maintained that he was advised that such a plea would preclude caning and that his confession was false, that he never vandalized any cars, and that the only crime he committed was stealing signs.[5][6]
Under the 1966 Vandalism Act, originally passed to curb the spread of political graffiti and which specifically penalized vandalism of government property,[2] Fay was sentenced on March 3, 1994 to four months in jail, a fine of 3,500 Singapore dollars (US$2,214 or £1,514 at the time), and six strokes of the cane.[7] Shiu, who pleaded not guilty, was sentenced to eight months in prison and 12 strokes of the cane.[8]
Fay's lawyers appealed, arguing that the Vandalism Act provided caning only for indelible forms of graffiti vandalism, and that the damaged cars had been cheaply restored to their original condition.[9]
Response
From the United States government
The official position of the United States government was that although it recognized Singapore's right to punish Fay within due process of law the punishment of caning was excessive for a teenager who committed a non-violent crime. The United States embassy in Singapore pointed out that the graffiti damage to the cars was not permanent, but caning would leave Fay with physical scars.[2]Then-U.S. President Bill Clinton called Fay's punishment extreme and mistaken, and pressured the Singaporean government to grant Fay clemency from caning. Two dozen U.S. senators signed a letter to the Singaporean government also appealing for clemency.
The Singaporean government pointed out that Singaporeans who break the law faced the same punishments as Fay,[1] and that Singapore's laws had kept the city free of vandalism and violence of the kind seen in New York.[10] The Straits Times criticized "interference" by the U.S. government and found it surprising that the President had found time to become involved, given the various foreign-policy and other crises it was facing.[5]
Nevertheless, then and late President Ong Teng Cheong commuted Fay's caning from six to four strokes as a gesture of respect toward Clinton.[11] Shiu's sentence was later also reduced, from twelve strokes to six, after a similar clemency appeal.
Fay received four strokes of the cane on May 5, 1994, at Queenstown Remand Centre.[12][13]
Public reaction
Following Fay's sentence, the case received wide coverage by the U.S. and world media.[14] The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times ran editorials and op-eds condemning the punishment.[15] USA Today reported that caning involved "bits of flesh fly[ing] with each stroke."[16] This latter detail was apparently taken from descriptions (originally derived from a 1974 press conference)[17] of a much larger number of strokes, for more severe crimes such as rape and robbery.Some commentaries[who?] treated the Michael Fay affair as a clash of cultures between Asian values and the differing view of human rights common in liberal Western countries.
Public opinion polls were divided, but mostly supportive of Fay's punishment.[18] A significant number of Americans were in favor of the caning, claiming that Singapore had a right to use corporal punishment and that the United States did not mete out severe enough punishment to its own juvenile offenders.[19] Others pointed out that once Americans go abroad, they are subject to the laws and penal codes of the country they visit.[20] The Singapore Embassy received "a flood of letters" from Americans strongly supporting Fay's punishment, and some polls showed a majority of Americans favored it.[21]
After Fay's punishment was carried out, the Office of the United States Trade Representative said it would try to prevent the World Trade Organization's first ministerial meeting from taking place in Singapore.
Aftermath
After his release from prison in June 1994, Fay returned to the United States to live with his biological father.[22] He gave several television interviews, including one with his American lawyer on CNN with Larry King on June 29, 1994, in which he admitted taking road signs but denied vandalizing cars.[23] He also claimed that he was ill-treated during questioning, but had shaken hands with the caning operative after his four strokes had been administered. This detail, together with the information that Fay sat down when he met a U.S. consular official the day after his caning,[24] contrasts with some of the more lurid descriptions of Singapore caning ("bits of flesh fly with each stroke", etc.) that had been carried in the Western press.[16]Several months after returning to the U.S., Fay suffered burns to his hands and face after a butane incident.[25][26][27] He was subsequently admitted to the Hazelden rehabilitation program for butane abuse.[25] He claimed that sniffing butane "made him forget what happened in Singapore."[28] In 1996, he was cited in Florida for a number of violations, including careless driving, reckless driving, not reporting a crash and having an open bottle of alcohol in a car.[29] Later, in 1998, still in Florida, Fay was arrested for possession of marijuana and drug paraphernalia, charges to which he confessed but was acquitted[30] because of technical errors in his arrest.[31]
In June 2010 Fay's case was recalled in international news, after another foreigner in Singapore, Swiss IT consultant Oliver Fricker, was sentenced to five months in jail and three strokes of the cane for vandalising a train.[32]
References
- "Graffiti man faces Singapore caning". BBC News. June 25, 2010.
Further reading
- Latif, Asad (1994). The Flogging of Singapore: The Michael Fay Affair. Singapore: Times Books International. ISBN 981-204-530-9
- Baratham, Gopal (1994). The Caning of Michael Fay. Singapore: KRP Publication. ISBN 981-00-5747-4
- Reyes, Alejandro (May 25, 1994). Rough Justice: A Caning in Singapore Stirs Up a Fierce Debate About Crime And Punishment, Asiaweek, Hong Kong.
- The Asiaweek Newsmap (April 27, 1994). Asiaweek.
- Chew, Valerie (August 5, 2009). "Michael Fay", Singapore Infopedia. National Library Board.
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