A PROTESTANT Christian couple were sentenced to eight weeks jail
on Wednesday for distributing and possessing seditious
publications.
In sentencing them, District Judge Roy Neighbour had considered
an earlier call by the prosecution for a jail term to be handed out
to Ong Kian Cheng, 50 and his wife Dorothy Chan Hien Leng, 46.
As the couple's offences affected the very foundation of
Singapore society, public policy therefore dictated that the court
apply the principle of deterrence in punishing them, the judge
explained.
But the jail terms the couple received were at the lower end of
what the prosecution had urged the court to impose. It had asked
the court to keep the couple behind bars for between two and six
months.
The couple were found guilty on four charges late last month in
the first full trial under the Sedition Act to be heard here.
Judge Neighbour noted that Ong, a SingTel technical officer and
Chan, an associate director with UBS, had said in their mitigation
that neither of them had realised they were doing anything
wrong.
Their only intention was to spread the Gospel by distributing
Christian tracts - something they had been doing for more than 20
years.
But the Judge said the offences they were convicted of were
'serious ones'.
'They have the capacity to undermine and erode the delicate
fabric of racial and religious harmony in Singapore,' said Judge
Neighbour.
He added that as Singaporeans, the husband and wife cannot claim
to be ignorant of the sensitivity of race and religion in
Singapore's multi-racial and religious society.
'Common sense dictates that religious fervour to spread the
faith, in our society, must be constrained by sensitivity,
tolerance and mutual respect for another's faith and religious
beliefs,' said the judge.