SUSAN ROOK, CNN ANCHOR: For American Michael Fay, the wait is over. Today the Singapore government did just what the court ordered and carried out the caning of the 18-year-old. Fay was struck four times with a rattan cane. That, by the way, was a reduced sentence, down from the original six strokes ordered for spray painting cars and other acts of vandalism.</s>MARIA RESSA, CNN JAKARTA BUREAU CHIEF: Michael Fay was an 18- year-old American kid living in Singapore. He went to the Singapore American school. He had a group of friends, and they went out one night, they vandalized a car. In Singapore, cars are so expensive there that it's a crime that is punishable by methods that seem very, very harsh by Western standards. He went through a trial process, it was very highly debated, not just in Singapore but in the United States, all over the world. A lot of countries who feel that the United States tries to bully them into accepting what the U.S. wants, and that was exactly the situation in Singapore. The reaction there was, why should we make an exception because the American president asks? His mother and his father both lashed out at Singapore. They felt that this was cruel punishment for an 18-year-old child who makes a mistake. They were concerned about the after effects of caning. Americans reacted, interestingly enough, by siding against Michael Fay. Many of them thought that he should be punished.
CNN 20: Michael Fay Caned in Singapore, May 5, 1994