Fourth blogger investigated in Singapore

According to Financial Mirror who picked it up from the The Sunday Times, reproduced at Asia Media, a fourth blogger is under investigation for racism. This case is slightly different as the individual, still unnamed, re-posted someone elses work. Can you be charged with racism or under the Sedition Act when you yourself have not actually written the article merely re-printed it? Looks like we are about to find out. It leads to a more interesting issue.

The focus of the crack down has moved from the authors to the distributors of the material. I might be living outside Singapore but the message is getting louder and clearer. They are consciously sending a message to all of us involved with the Singaporean Blogosphere and the Sedition Act is all encompassing.

The site in question is still up and running, in fact I have been reading the posts for the last 30 minutes.[chinapore.blogspot.com has now been removed] Is that an offence too? I imagine it will not remain online for much longer. It also makes me wonder whether or not if by linking to a site I can also be charged under the Sedition Act. So I am going to be overly cautious and remove the link. However it doesn't take a degree in computer engineering to work out the address.

Racist[allegedly] blogger investigated in Singapore

A fourth racist[allegedly] blogger is being investigated by police in Singapore, after two young men who posted hateful remarks about Moslems and Malays on the Internet were given landmark jail sentences, The Sunday Times reported.
The latest blog, or weblog, is called China Pork [link removed, just type in the name of the site followed by .blogspot.com]and belongs to someone who goes by the name of Chinapore.

The site reproduced postings by 17-year-old private school student Gan Huai Shi, the third person after Benjamin Koh Song Huat and Nicholas Lim Yew to be charged with making seditious comments on his blog, "The Second Holocaust".

Gan has shut down his blog, but Chinaport said he decided to re-post Gan's articles "for others to express themselves".

Police spokesman Siow Cheng Cheng confirmed the probe is underway.

Animal shelter assistant Koh, 27, and former assistant marketing manager Nicholas Lim, 25, were jailed for a month and a day respectively on Friday. Lim was also fined 5,000 Singapore dollars (USD 2,976).

In imposing the sentence under the Sedition Act, Senior District Judge Richard Magnus cited current terrorism fears.

Singaporeans "must realize that callous and reckless remarks on racial or religious subjects have the potential to cause social disorder, in whatever medium or forum they are expressed," Magnus said.

The cases were viewed as a watershed moment in the arena of Internet expression in the city-state. (dpa)