麦来乱 by 五月天

Two bloggers charged under Sedition Act over racist remarks
By Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE : Two bloggers have been charged with sedition for posting racist comments online.

This is the first time bloggers are being charged in Singapore and it is sending shockwaves through the local blogging community.

Lawyers say the last time the sedition act was invoked in Singapore was at least 10 years ago.

Twenty-five-year-old Nicholas Lim Yew and 27-year-old Benjamin Koh Song Huat are being accused of posting racist comments on an online forum and on their blog site.

They are both being charged with committing a seditious act, by promoting feelings of ill-will and hostility between races in Singapore.

They were not represented by defence lawyers and were granted bail of S$10,000 each.

This charge came as a shock to many in the blogging community.

Said Singaporean blogger Benjamin Lee (Mr Miyagi):" A lot of them will be looking at their blogs and wondering if they made any legally seditious remarks. I think because of the way this will be played up, it's negative publicity for the Singapore blogging community."

"Currently if you surf the net you will come across a lot of bloggers making such comments. You will probably see a drop in such cases henceforth. At the moment I am not aware of any cases except of a case in Iran where bloggers are charged. But Iran has a different legal system from Singapore," said Leonard Loo, managing partner of Leonard Loo & Co Advocates & Solicitors.

Channel NewsAsia understands that the Media Development Authority had asked host servers to remove a racist blog from the web.

Police are now investigating this matter.

While many racist blogs by Singaporeans can be found online, the blogging community is also quick to criticize any racist comments.

Channel NewsAsia has received many emails from viewers informing us about a few racist sites.

Viewers said they were "appalled as well as disappointed that a Singaporean could condemn" other fellow Singaporeans of a different race.

Lawyers warn that anybody who forwards seditious remarks to others via email can also be charged with abetment.

The case is expected to be heard in court again on September 21.

A person is deemed to have committed an offence under the Sedition Act if he performs any act which has a seditious tendency, or conspires with any person to do so.

It is also an offence to utter any seditious words or to print, publish, sell, distribute, reproduce or import any seditious publication.

First time offenders can be fined up to S$5,000, or jailed up to three years, or both.

For subsequent offences, they can be jailed up to five years and have their seditious publications forfeited and destroyed. - CNA /ct/ls

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For the blur folks like me who doesnt noe the chim word called sedition, here's the definition from The American Heritage Dictionary:

NOUN:

1. Conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state.
2. Insurrection; rebellion

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I believe there had already been 42746912 blogs on this issue but still I have my bit to comment.

I haven seen their blogs or watever nonsense they wrote, which ethnic grp they're targetting on, but it mus have been REAL bad to be flamed by so many fellow netizens, to the forums, to the papers and finally to the govt agencies.

Its not easy for people coming from different background to live harmoniously together all the time. There's bound to be some conflicts. Even within ur own group, u'll see individuals who dun see eye to eye with each other even when they're living in the same district, same skin color, eats the same stuff from the same market, etc etc. Think of the infamous/notorious Chinese family neighbour dat no one wants to live beside (Cant rem their name nor the street where they reside). In US, a huge affluent country, although they only have 2 main skin colors, more often then not, there would be a case of fighting or such due to a clash btwn the 2 colors. We have 3 main races in SG + the Eurasians.

A lecturer (Global Marketing I think) once told me that in order to break into a foreign market, we must understand the culture of that market and customise our strategies to suit the market so as to gain recognition & of cos trust and sales. Its the same with life. Like one ancient philosopher said,"知己知彼 百战百胜". We have to understand the opponent (other races) so as to win the battle (live harmoniously).

The Malays have their joyous wedding at the void decks, making a din for at most 2 days. How abt Chinese? We have a sad wake at the void decks for as long as 7 days. Dun other races have to tolerate us more? And the sterotypical trend is that most Malays live on the lower floors (dunno y), dun they have to tolerate us more since the noise couldnt be shut out by simply closing the windows and on the aircons?

Most of us are racist. For the simple reason that we cannot/chose-not-to understand the reasons behind the other races actions. We also grew up under the influence of ur parents, who inbuilt a stereotypical image of bad guys in us since young. Who was the 1st person who said,"Dun be naughty arh, wait ah neh bring u go sell" in various dialects to u?

One shldnt be ethnocentric of their own ethnic group. More so if u're living in a multi-racial country. There'll not be any progress if people just stay at their grounds and have conflicts everyday. True, the stereotypes are there, e.g. Blangra = construction workers, cleaners; China girls = production operators; Indonesians = maids, but we shldnt be blind to the CEOs/Higher Mgmt who are of these ethnic groups. Who noes the next Indonesian customer u serve might well be a Finance Manager and u treat her like a maid or the next boss u work under is from one of the ethnic grp u despise?

Racism aside, shld a harsh punishment like 3 yrs jail term or $5,000 fine or both, be imposed on remarks made online??

Like what the tourist promotional board says, Singapore is a fine city. They have more than enough laws to cover each and every flaw or loopholes in the governance of the country. If a loophole exist, there'll be a law passed the next hr to prevent such cases from happening again.

The punishment is imposed to prevent any racism related riots and maintain the political stablity of Singapore. But one may wonder, isnt the govt being a self-conflicting entity, on one hand promoting freedom of speech, the other hand punishing people who makes remarks on the virtual world?

The Speaker's Corner had long since vacated. It was supposed to let citizens speak their mind, but citizens soon found out that there is a restriction on the topics for the speech. If it is offensive to the statutory boards, u'll find a lawyers' letter in the mailbox soon.

The 2 bloggers published their offensive article on the web. Seriously I'm keen to find out the tolerance level of our MDA, who often snips away the most exciting part of a movie jus bcos they think its offensive. Perhaps it was due to the fact that it was PUBLISHED, a wider amt of people are able to view it and get psychologically offended. A speech would just amount to slander, publish it and it'll change to sedition.

Is Singapore being overly-protective of their citizens/reputation? We get all the cut movies, the *bip* songs, the "healthy" magazines, the "correct" tv programs. The art and true meaning had long since gone b4 it reaches our hands. Come to think of it, we're like a more lenient North Korea, which totally cuts outside influences from their citizens in order to preserve their own cultures, traditions, etc.

Singapore, being an (wanna-be) affluent country, is trying to be open-minded but still have a traditional way of governing the country. We're now being influenced to give time-doers a 2nd chance but I wonder if govt agencies will actually employ ppl who did time. If all that outside influences were altered b4 reaching us, are we now being influenced by the govt or by the outside?

I agree to the way the 2 offensive bloggers were punished, in view of preventing more social riots, but MEDIA, being a handle-less dagger, has greater power in influencing the public then the deterrence the punishment is supposed to do. I'm sure there's a lot of bloggers out there condemning the punishment or supporting it, due to its wide publicity. A few of the condemners might try to play a fool with the law to test the limit of our local MDA. Isnt that gonna cause more people to get hurt? Or what if the minority ethnic group steps out and claims that the majority group did some offensive stuff which they are innocent of and the majority are wrongly accused? Wouldnt that cause more disturbance??

Media is more influentially-powerful than the govt...