SINGAPORE: An unemployed man has been fined S$8,500 for inciting violence online.
In what's believed to be the first trial of its kind in Singapore, the court heard that 36-year-old Gary Yue Mun Yew posted a video clip depicting the assassination of former Egyptian President Muhammad Anwar al-Sadat on the Facebook page of socio-political website Temasek Review on August 9, 2010 at about 3.00 pm.
Along with the
video, Yue wrote the comment: "We should re-enact a live version of this
on our own grand-stand during our national's (sic) parade!".
The
former engineer at Singapore Technologies was also found guilty of
using a photograph deemed to incite violence on his Facebook profile in
late July or early August 2010.
The picture depicted Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet cong prisoner.
The
head of former Deputy Prime Minister and Home Affairs Minister, Wong
Kan Seng, was superimposed on the image of the prisoner.
The People's Action Party logo was also displayed on the prisoner's chest.
On each count, Yue could have faced up to five years' jail or a fine, or both.
In
sentencing, District Judge Low Wee Ping made it clear that the charges
were based on the acts of posting electronic documents that contained
incitement of violence.
This, the judge stressed, was a big difference from the act of inciting violence itself.
Yue's
lawyers had argued that he had no intent to incite violence through the
posting and that the video clip was not effective in inciting violence.
But the judge said these are irrelevant.
Under Section 267 of the Penal Code, the charges Yue faced, were strictly liability offences.
The
judge made it clear that the Youtube video and Yue's comment were
"without doubt, an incitement to political assassination of persons on
the grand-stand" on National Day.
And this, was relevant in sentencing.
So
he found Yue guilty on both charges and fined him S$6,000 for posting
the video clip and another S$2,500 for posting the doctored photograph
on his Facebook profile.
In his submissions, Deputy Public
Prosecutor Sanjiv Vaswani had urged the court to impose a nine month
jail term for Yue on the charge of posting the assassination video clip.
He said this was in line with the criminal intimidation sentencing benchmark.
But
defence lawyers countered that the video did not have broad exposure,
that it was only established three weeks after the incident that an
individual had reported the posting to authorities.
As for
criminal intimidation, the defence counsel pointed out that the essence
of the offence is that harm is done, which was not the case here.
The defence counsel added that although the video posting was made on National Day, it had absolutely no chance of fruition.
He
told the court that the act was "a grandiose statement, hyperbolic,
surreal" and the exclamation marks at the end of the comment underlined
those facts.
The defence counsel noted that this case is the
first of its kind in Singapore, so it is easy for the court to make an
example out of the accused.
But he urged the judge not to give a
custodial sentence as Yue has already lost his job and has to take care
of his elderly father who is unwell.
But DPP Sanjiv argued that it would be cheap to slap Yue with a fine, given the fact that self-radicalisation is a threat.
So, he said a custodial sentence is "imperative to set the sign that such acts will not be condoned".
The
district judge said the sentence to be imposed has a wide spectrum and
he found that Yue has more personal mitigating factors than aggravating
ones, so a fine is liable.
- CNA/cc
yest all he did. but when one look at thephot ask yourself - does the artiste (t-i this case - the accuse) work of combining digital the photos and art evokes a sense of hatred and berseking bloodlust? if no - then its just a lowsy work of art, combining probably some lousy photos to satisfy his own dislike for a vcertain party.
what to evoke one;s fighting spirit through art - you need to have a good piece of art work - want to evoke a demon a warlord within a man to fight - you gotta have some flair in how to create 'art', otherwise its 'fuck' only.
no want will say you vandalize if you paint something good on the wall. like last year fricker's case of breaking into depot and 'vandalizing' MRT. those were some good works! h'es infiltration also slap the security system ashame - somewho can without formal training in infiltration can actually break in, and with enough time to leave a work of art just with spray paint