Singapore's multi-racial society : Choice of freedom of expression or social responsibility??

I think in the context of Singapore's multi-racial society, Szilagyi's view should be adopted. Szilagyi believes that greater emphasis should be placed on social responsibility of the media rather than the freedom of expression of the media to show its importance in any democracy.
With reference to Singapore's multi-racial society, racial issues have been a sensitive topic to be discussed in Singapore. In Singapore's history, there are occurrences of communal riots, leading to unnecessary loss of lives and property. I would not think anyone sensible would wish that communal riots to have sparked off, due to the comments of any insensitive people; it's absolutely not worth it. Having experienced communal riots in its history, Singapore has taken action to prevent a repetition of such unfortunate events. The Singapore's judicial system set laws that punish those who make any racist comments publicly and any public action that are discriminatory towards any race, and attempt to spark off a racial riot. Social responsibility is definitely essential for social cohesion. By respecting the race and religions of others in a multi-racial and multi-religious society like Singapore, we can foster stronger communal bonds and people of different races and religions are willing to share their different cultures with each other. Like Szilagyi stated in his view that we must have an understanding that once our messages are publicised, they are subjective to multiple interpretation, both racial and religious, and could serve political agendas. Messages that are interpreted as discriminatory towards any race or religion would be criticised not just by the race or religion targeted at, but also people who are supportive of social responsibility over freedom of expression. The government of the nation that the author of the message is from would also faced criticisms for not imparting social responsibility to its citizens and not preventing the publication of such messages.
The presence of social responsibility would definitely restrict complete freedom of expression by the media. True, freedom of expression is essential for any democracy and freedom of expression means that expression of any ideas or comments that could be discriminatory towards any race or religion should not be punishable by the law. Singer had questioned the cause of truth that is served by prohibiting the denial of the Holocaust as restricting freedom of expression. However the denial of the Holocaust, a painful reminder of the Fascist past of many European nations, is simply insensitive to those who ahve experienced the Holocaust directly or indirectly. Insensitive and racist views are just the reason behind a monstrous disaster like the Holocaust to materialise. True, there is no longer a serious threat of any return of Nazism today, given the suppression upon Nazi ideas and propaganda. But I find this is ironic for Singer to support freedom of expression over social responsibility while the Austrian democrats are suppressing Nazi ideas and propaganda and that is already a restriction on freedom of expression, which include expressing Nazi ideas. Singer also said that without freedom of expression, human progress is hindered by a basic roadblock. However in Singapore, if the citizens and the media are given complete freedom of expression, then racist messages will be publicise, communal riots will erupt, and this will lead to political and economic instability, then how much human progress can be achieved when the lives of the citizens are in peril and having to live in poverty due to economic instability. I feel that it would be ironical for political instability to arise due to the freedom of expression that is granted upon its citizens and media by the government itself. Thus it does seem like a suicidal decision by the government to grant complete freedom of expression.
Thus with these reasons, I feel that in the context of Singapore's multi-racial and multi-religious society, the improtance of having social responsibility outweighs the need for freedom of expression, just to support democracy.

Does rehabilitation works on prisoners today?

The word "rehabilitation" is defined as to restore a person back into a normal condition or life. Rehabilitation are used on prisoners to allow them to reintegrate back into the society or into a normal life. However the question is about the ways the Law used to implement rehabilitation, the justice system may used harsh punishments such as caning and manual labour,or "soft" ways of rehabilitation,rather than punishment, such as counselling.
The objectives of harsh punishments may be to inflict pain onto the prisoners as a penalty to their offences, hoping that these prisoners will refrain from repeating their crimes, unless they wanted to suffer the painful consequences of their crimes again. The harsh punishments also act as a deterrence to the society to warn people against committing the same crimes. However, inflicting physical pain on prisoners may not necessary means that the psychological side of the prisoners changed because they do not want to suffer the punishment again, but this is just an assumption. Prisoners with psychological problems may have trouble refraining from committing certain crimes such as theft, drug abuse, and even rape. So the infliction of physical pain or the shame from doing public work as the "chain gang" via the implementation of harsh punishments will not prevent them from committing the same crimes again.
Prisoners who commit crimes due to psychological problems ,such as being abused at a young age, will get a greater help from rehabilitation that tackles these prisoners' psychological problems rather than using physical pain as a reminder for these offenders to stop committing crimes.Undergoing psychological rehabilitation, prisoners will be able to get a better understanding of their problems and with psychological therapy,it will make it easier for these prisoners to gain greater mental strength in vanquishing their psychological problems.However the drawback of this form of rehabilitation is how long will prisoners undergoing psychological rehabilitation will forget about their psychological problems. Thus the psychological help may not be permanent while the infliction of physical pain may leave permanents scars on the flesh of prisoners or the psychological scars from the shame in doing public labour, in hope that these scars will remind prisoners for life that the consequences of committing crimes are extremely painful or degrading. Also, psychological rehabilitation may not deter others from committing these crimes as they know they will not suffer any shame or pain from committing the crimes.
Thus the justice system will have to understand the conditions of the prisoner awaiting the sentence, and assign the "most suitable" penalty upon the prisoner, hoping that the sentence will be able to both deter the public from committing crimes, yet able to prevent prisoners from committing any crimes again.