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Posted on 10/07/2005 2:09:40 PM PDT by Alouette
SINGAPORE - A Singapore court Friday sentenced two ethnic Chinese to prison for posting racist remarks about ethnic Malays on the Internet, in what is considered a landmark case underscoring the government's attempts to crack down on racial intolerance and regulate online expression.
Animal shelter worker Benjamin Koh Song Huat, 27, was jailed for one month while Nicholas Lim Yew, an unemployed 25-year-old, was sentenced to a nominal prison term of one day and fined the maximum 5,000 Singapore dollars ($2,969) for racist comments against the minority Malay community.
"Racial and religious hostility feeds on itself," said Senior District Judge Richard Magnus in passing sentence.
"Young Singaporeans ... must realize that callous and reckless remarks on racial or religious subjects have the potential to cause social disorder, in whatever medium or forum they are expressed," he said.
Lim and Koh stood in the docks with their heads bowed as they pleaded guilty to charges of committing acts "which had seditious tendencies to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races and classes."
Lim had posted disparaging comments about Malays and Islam on an Internet forum for dog lovers in a discussion about whether taxis should refuse to carry uncaged pets out of consideration for Muslims, whose religion considers dogs unclean.
In his online journal, Koh had advocated desecrating Islam's holy site of Mecca.
In mitigation, Lim and Koh's lawyers said their clients were remorseful and had separately issued apologies. Their remarks have been removed.
About 80 percent of Singapore's 4.2 million people are ethnic Chinese. Malays — mostly Muslims — make up 15 percent while the rest are ethnic Indians, Eurasians and others.
This small island republic is an oasis of calm in a region where ethnic tensions sometimes explode into violence, particularly in Indonesia. Singapore hasn't had traumatic racial experiences since deadly Chinese-Malay riots in the 1960s.
The two cases represented the first time Singaporeans had been prosecuted and convicted for racist expression under the Sedition Act — a colonial-era law used by the British to fight a communist insurgency — since the city-state's independence in 1965, the judge added.
It was necessary for the court "to make it clear that such an offense will be met, upon conviction, with a sentence of general deterrence," he said, and warned: "Bloggers who still have similar offending remarks are well advised to remove them immediately.
Koh and Lim could have been jailed up to three years.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
Folks, listen up! When the U.N. makes noises about taking over the Internet, that means that ~10% of the posts on FR would become subject to PROSECUTION!!
I've lost track. In the Muslim world they have a hierarchy of racial hate, where do the Chinese fall? Are they Dhimmis?
Kerry world!
They better ban the Koran then. Get it off line and burn or flush any hard copies they can find.
Libertarian ping.To be added or removed from my ping list freepmail me or post a message here
Let's not forget that the Singaporean government, while it has much to commend it, has never placed freedom of speech, in any of its four official languages, high on its agenda.
None of the people involved in this "racist crime" are white.
Let's hope we can hold on to that freedom, what with the... never mind.
No mention that Malays, up north in UMNO controlled swine country, impose islumic religious apartheid (the BUMIPUTRA system) on all other religious groups, or that on the PAS controlled areas of the east coast sharia religious and gender apartheid has been imposed on Chinese, Indians, Orang Asli and others.
Criticizing that or speaking the truth of Islamic power grabbing, Islamic massacres (May 13) and how they are used to scare the loacls into accepting dhimmitude at the hands of the Muslims will get you jailed there.
I'm sure the Sinapore courts will be just as strict the next time and Iman preaches hatefully against non Muslims or Jews, yep they'll just throw that Iman in jail, any day now....
The must convert or die.
If that's the way it's headed, I'm in deep doo-doo!
Sounds exactly like one of the reasons why the organization of dictators, despots, and IOC would want control of the net.
See #13
AMERIKA, thanks for the article-- I read every word and then copied & emailed it to my brother in Texas.
Singapore is all about crackdowns. It's what they do.
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