Wednesday, May 21, 2008

MAN ARRESTED FOR POSTING RACIAST CONTENT ONLINE

SINGAPORE: The police have arrested a 24-year-old man for posting racially-offensive content on his blog.

The man was nabbed at his home in Paya Lebar Way on Tuesday, around 9:45pm for posting in his blog which according to police may wound the feelings of a person of another race.
As part of ongoing investigations, the police have also seized a computer, believed to be used to post the blog.

The arrest follows two complaints, which the police received on May 19, concerning the alleged posts.

The suspect who is an undergraduate denied being a racist and maintained he didn’t harbour any ill will towards the racial group he wrote about.

His post apparently sparked off by the suspect seeing a man sitting on the floor of an MRT train,

“there he sat, unaffected by his surroundings, smelling like he didn’t showered in years and wore scary dirty cloths, he wrote. He went on to make allegedly offensive comments about that racial group in his post.

His post has drawn flak from local netizens who labeled him racist.

What’s interesting is, that this post was posted some two months ago and began circulating only days ago.

Past cases:

Last month a man and his wife were charged under the sedition act for publication that cast Prophet Muhammed in negative light.

2006: 21-year old accounts assistant given stern warning for putting up offensive cartoon of Jesus in his blog.

2005: 27-year old man becomes first to be jailed for 1 month for posting racist comments online.


Singapore penal code section 298, chapter 224, says any person who deliberately wounds the religious or racial feelings of any person can be jailed up to 3 years and/or fined.

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