SINGAPORE — Hours before his son Li Shengwu's appeal is due to be heard in court, Mr Lee Hsien Yang on Monday (Sept 3) questioned why the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) is continuing its prosecution of his son for contempt of court, but appears not to have gone after international media and others for "much stronger criticism" of Singapore's courts.

Writing in a public Facebook post on Monday, Mr Lee — the younger brother of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong — said that the AGC’s prosecution of Mr Li for a private Facebook post that was "shared only with his friends" is still ongoing.

"In the meantime, much stronger criticism of Singapore courts has recently been published in some international media and widely shared public posts. AGC appears not to have commenced committal proceedings against the media and others, whilst nonetheless continuing this action against Shengwu for his private communications," he added. He did not cite examples of the criticism put forth by these foreign media outlets.

TODAY has reached out to the AGC for comments.

Mr Li, 33, is based in the United States and is an assistant professor in economics at Harvard University. The AGC is taking  legal action against him for alleged contempt of court based on a private Facebook post he made on July 15 last year.

In the post that Mr Li claimed was shared only with friends, he wrote that the Singapore Government was "litigious" and has a "pliant court system".

His comments accompanied a Wall Street Journal article he posted on the dispute between his father Lee Hsien Yang, his aunt Lee Wei Ling and his uncle, PM Lee, over the Oxley Road family house that belonged to the late founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who was Mr Li's grandfather.

The AGC wrote to Mr Li six days after his comments were made. It asked him to "purge the contempt" by deleting the post and issuing a written apology on his Facebook page by Aug 4 last year.

On Aug 4, Mr Li wrote on Facebook that he had not intended to attack the Singapore judiciary or undermine public confidence in the administration of justice, and had amended his original post accordingly to clarify. He did not apologise.

Noting that Mr Li had not complied with all its requests, the AGC filed an application to start contempt of court proceedings against him in the High Court, which was granted on Aug 21 last year.

A few months later, Mr Li's lawyers tried to challenge the order the AGC obtained that allowed it to personally serve him papers, outside of Singapore, in relation to this contempt-of-court case.

A High Court judge dismissed his application on March 26 this year. 

The decision — which also saw Mr Li having to pay costs understood to be about S$6,000 — meant that legal proceedings against him could go on.

In his Facebook post on Monday, Mr Li's father, Mr Lee Hsien Yang reiterated that his son's lawyers had argued that the AGC did not satisfy the requirements for proper service of documents outside of Singapore.

On Monday afternoon, the Court of Appeal is slated to hear Mr Li's application for permission to appeal against an order by the AGC to personally serve him papers outside Singapore.

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