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