Shortly after the March 23 death of the towering leader Lee Kuan Yew, who had ruled Singapore with an iron hand directly or behind the scenes for much of the 56 years since he took power in 1959, a youth named Amos Yee Pang Sang uploaded a an obscenity-laced nine-minute video onto YouTube criticizing Lee and saying he was glad the patriarch was dead.
The furor over the 16-year-old’s action approximates what might happen if someone delivered a similarly insulting message in North Korea about Kim Jong-Il. The press quoted “experts” who called him mentally deficient and a rabble-rouser. Within hours, at least 22 public complaints had been filed with the Singapore police, demanding an investigation. Although the video was almost immediately taken down from Yee’s YouTube channel, he was arrested and charged with intending to “wound the religious feelings of Christians.” On his way to court, a 49-year-old assailant leapt out of the crowd to beat him in the face.
The incident raises troubling questions about Singapore’s maturity as a culture despite its position as an intensively developed and highly educated society with the third-highest gross domestic product in the world and the second in Asia behind Macau. Yee is not alone by any means. In early May, editors of The Real Singapore were threatened with fines of up to S$200,000 (about US$150,000) and a maximum three years in prison and their website was shut down after authorities deemed it to be offensive. Full story...
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The furor over the 16-year-old’s action approximates what might happen if someone delivered a similarly insulting message in North Korea about Kim Jong-Il. The press quoted “experts” who called him mentally deficient and a rabble-rouser. Within hours, at least 22 public complaints had been filed with the Singapore police, demanding an investigation. Although the video was almost immediately taken down from Yee’s YouTube channel, he was arrested and charged with intending to “wound the religious feelings of Christians.” On his way to court, a 49-year-old assailant leapt out of the crowd to beat him in the face.
The incident raises troubling questions about Singapore’s maturity as a culture despite its position as an intensively developed and highly educated society with the third-highest gross domestic product in the world and the second in Asia behind Macau. Yee is not alone by any means. In early May, editors of The Real Singapore were threatened with fines of up to S$200,000 (about US$150,000) and a maximum three years in prison and their website was shut down after authorities deemed it to be offensive. Full story...
Related posts:
- Singapore's arrest of a 16-year-old is all you need to know about LKY's legacy...
- The storm Amos Yee raised and why it is clouding our judgement...
- Police arrest Amos Yee, the teen behind anti-Lee Kuan Yew video...
- Police report lodged over Amos Yee anti-Lee Kuan Yew video...
- The curse of Lee Kuan Yew...
- The darker side of Lee Kuan Yew...
- A look at Lee Kuan Yew and the 'malaria-infested backwater' myth...
- Singapore brings hammer down on news site...
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