"Insensitive" Youtube Video cause for arrest

            With last week’s discussion on censorship for the Internet, I stumbled across a pretty interesting article. I feel like sometimes we take for granted the endless possibilities the Internet has to offer for us, but that is not the case in other countries. Sunday morning police arrested Amos Yee and at least 20 police reports were filed against him. Now you might be asking yourself what did this 17-year-old do to get this much heat, he made a YouTube video. In his eight-minute long video titled “Lee Kuan Yew is Finally Dead!”, Amos says that the late “Lee Kuan Yew is a horrible person because everyone is afraid that if they say something like that, they might get in trouble.” To give some quick background, Lee Kuan Yew was the President of Singapore until he recently passed away.

            An angry student Yuen Wei Ping filed the initial report. She argued that Amos’ video “made insensitive comments against the late Mr. Lee as well as against the Christian Faith.” In the video Amos also compared the dead President to Jesus Christ by saying both figures “are power-hungry and malicious but deceive others into thinking they are both compassionate and kind.” He also said Lee’s followers were “completely delusional and ignorant, and have absolutely no sound logic or knowledge about him that is grounded in reality.” And if you’re like me, you have heard worse things about our President on the local news channels, so this begs to ask the question why Amos was arrested.

            Singapore does provide the same rights as over here in America. The video’s content was an offence under Section 298 of Singapore’s Penal Code. Under this section, anyone found uttering words “with deliberate intention of wounding the religious or racial feelings of any person” could be sentence to 3 years imprisonment, a fine, or both. Seems like a pretty steep price to pay for running your mouth on social media a little bit. But yet again this is the country that makes it illegal to spit in public, walk around your own home naked, and will fine you for not flushing public toilets.

            The investigations is still on going but Amos made a recent statement challenging the prime minister Lee Hsien Loong when he asked if the latter wanted to sure him for his opinions on the video. “If Lee Hsein Loong wishes to sue me, I will oblige to dance with him.” Hopefully Amos gets away with his absolutely “atrocious” crime but as for now, he continues to stay true to his beliefs.