Critics miss the point, problem lies

with hate speech law in Amos Yee case

Amos Yee, 16, and his mother leave the State courts in Singapore, on March 31, 2015. Pic: AFP.

Object 1

By Carlton Tan Apr 02, 2015

Headlines in the international media typically associate the charges Amos Yee faces
with the fact that his video was critical of the late Lee Kuan Yew. For instance, the
BBCs headline goes Singapore charges teen over anti-Lee Kuan Yew rant while The
Guardians goes Singapore teenager charged over critical Lee Kuan Yew video. But
that is misleading. The most serious charge Yee faces is for making inflammatory
remarks about Christianity, not for criticising Singapores supreme leader. The
relevant law is hate-speech type legislation. The other two charges Yee faces also have
nothing to do with his criticism of the government either, at least on the surface. The
two other charges are: one for distributing obscene materials on his website and one
for causing distress to viewers. In other words, this is not an example of the

governments intolerance towards criticism there are many better ones for that
this is an example of a problematic law that was passed in Parliament without debate.
For claritys sake, Yee faces three charges. The first charge (hate speech) carries a
maximum penalty of three years imprisonment, or a fine, or both; the second charge
(obscene materials) carries a maximum of 3 months imprisonment, or a fine, or both;
the third charge (causing distress) carries a maximum fine of S$5,000. It is the first
that carries the heaviest penalty and is what I am mainly concerned with here.
There are three problems with Singapores law against hate speech. One, it is
unnecessary and redundant; two, it cannot be consistently applied; three, it is liable to
be abused.
Unnecessary and redundant
Phil Robertson, Human Rights Watchs Asia deputy director, has criticised the
Singapore government:
However crass Amos Yees statements in the video may be, nothing he
said should have landed him in a criminal court. Religions are
resilient and able to defend themselves, and in a real democracy, his
allegations should have been easily rebutted by the weight of public
opinion. All Singapore has managed to do in this instance is make
more people want to see Amos Yees video. The government should
drop the charges and release him, and end its repression of free
expression.
According to Robertson, Yee should not be prosecuted because his comments pose no
threat to religions and religious harmony. But he is missing the point. Yee was not
charged with promoting disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between
different religious groups (under Section 298A of the Penal Code), he was charged with
making remarks against Christianity, with the deliberate intention of wounding the
religious feelings of Christians in general (under Section 298). Whether or not
religions are able to defend themselves is therefore irrelevant. The law here is
concerned only with whether Yee posted his YouTube video with the deliberate
intention of wounding the religious feelings of individuals. What matters is how
individuals are affronted, not the threat to societys religious harmony or public
tranquillity (which sets a lower bar than public order). (The need to uphold the law is
also arguably more important than the need to avoid giving Yees video free publicity.)
And therein lies the problem. The prosecutor chose to charge Yee under Section 298,
rather than Section 298A, arguably because it was harder to show that Yee had

promoted disharmony between religious groups. What then is the purpose of Section
298, if it is not to safeguard religious harmony on the societal level? It appears that it is
meant to protect individuals from feeling offended. But if that is the case then I am
baffled because that was never Parliaments intention, and it is also not the states job
to mollycoddle its citizens.
During a 2007 discussion, Members of Parliament (MP) from the ruling Peoples
Action Party (PAP) agreed that the purpose of this law was to safeguard racial and
religious harmony and to preserve the social fabric of the country. But how does the
wounding of religious feelings threaten religious harmony? Its an insult to the
forbearance of religious groups to suggest that they will threaten the peace simply
because their members feel offended; they wont. The law is therefore unnecessary.
Moreover, if Parliaments objective is to safeguard racial and religious harmony and
to preserve the social fabric of the country, then Section 298A does that equally well
and Section 298 is redundant. Section 298A specifically targets people who knowingly
promotes or attempts to promote, on grounds of religion or race, disharmony or
feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will between different religious or racial groups. Since
another law fulfils the same objective and does it better, Section 298 is redundant.

Singapore Parliament in session. Pic: The Online Citizen.

Cannot be consistently applied

Even if we accept that the law is necessary to protect individuals from deeply offensive
comments about their religion, we need to consider also whether the law is a fair one
that is, can it be consistently applied without discrimination?
Perhaps we should first consider local playwright Alfian Saats argument that Yee had
made a standard anti-theistic rant, and was therefore only irritating rather than deeply
offensive. In a Facebook post, he wrote:
1) He did not insult the religious figure.
2) He described the religionists as power hungry and malicious.
3) Power-hungry is a familiar anti-theistic critique of institutional
religion.
4) Malicious, but with a facade of being compassionate and kind is
also another familiar anti-theistic critique. Take your pick of the
malice': terrorism, sex abuse of minors, subjugation of women,
persecution of LGBTs etc.
5) Their impact and legacy will ultimately not last is the argument
that the world is heading towards secularism (admittedly a
Eurocentric viewpoint).
6) Theyre full of bull is the dismissal of anything that does not fit a
rationalist/empirical/secular framework.
I disagree with Alfian. Yee did insult Jesus. His comparison was between Lee and
Jesus (the clue is in the flashing of a picture of Jesus in one of the images), and
therefore his description, power hungry etc. was made in reference to Jesus, not his
followers. His critique is also unlike the standard anti-theistic critique that atheists
typically make, in that it is curt, not reasoned. The one-word-per-point name-calling is
more inflammatory than a discussion of the issue, and is why Christians were more
offended by this than by books or speeches by Christopher Hitchens. But even if we
find Yees statements deeply offensive, and more than just a minor irritant, it still
doesnt justify the use of Section 298.
The issue here is one of equal enforcement. Yee is not the first person to say deeply
offensive things in a curt manner, and he will not be the last. The fact is that people are
deeply offended by things they read or see online all the time. Its impossible to
legislate and police against every single instance when they are. Instead, only those
who come under the national spotlight and become the subject of multiple police
reports get prosecuted people like Yee who posted his video in the middle of the
mourning period for the late Lee Kuan Yew and became the subject of over 20 police
reports. This means that only certain people get prosecuted for breaking this law, while
others who break the law too, dont. Therefore, the law is problematic because it

cannot be consistently applied and instead tends to target those who receive significant
media attention, something irrelevant to the crime.

PAP Youth Member involved in racist posting. Pic: TOC.

Liable to be abused
Finally, because this law cannot be equally enforced against every violator, it is also
liable to be abused. Prosecutors have a certain degree of freedom to choose who to
prosecute and who not to, but it cannot make its decision on political grounds, because
the prosecutor is there to serve the public interest, not the Prime Ministers interest
(when they come into conflict). Unfortunately, because its not practical for
prosecutors to go after every single person who says something offensive, they are
forced to choose. But the sheer latitude this law grants them creates a huge propensity
for abuse.
For example, netizens have raised questions about a 4-year-old case wherein a former
Youth PAP member, Jason Neo, made a racist remark about Muslim kids. The
prosecution has yet to file charges against Neo despite a 4-year police investigation. As
a result netizens have begun to suggest that the police and the prosecution only worked
so quickly to file charges against Yee because he had insulted the PAPs mascot, Lee
Kuan Yew, and criticised the ruling partys policies. In contrast, they suggest that the
former YPAP member is being protected because of his association with the ruling
party. These insinuations of political bias threaten the peoples faith in the integrity of

the Attorney-Generals Chambers (AGC) and highlight how the laws ambiguity makes
it easy to abuse.
At this point, the AGC has three options. 1) Go after the YPAP member. 2) Disclose the
reasons for the prosecutorial decision. 3) Get rid of laws that are liable to abuse.
The first solution may be impossible for reasons we do not know of, and which the SPF
and AGC are unwilling to disclose. And it may also be impossible to go after everyone
who violates Section 298. The second solution, though ideal, may according to the
AGC not be feasible because of the risks associated with disclosure:
(a) in evaluating whether it is in the public interest to take a
particular prosecution decision, the Attorney-General considers a
large number of often competing interests, including those of the
victim, the accused person and society as a whole;
(b) non-disclosure enables the Attorney-Generals Chambers to retain
flexibility to depart from the guidelines when the interests of justice call for
this in any given case, while keeping to a broadly consistent path;
(c) any attempt to publish guidelines is likely to result in vague guidelines,
which would in turn have the undesirable effect of reducing, rather than
enhancing, consistency; and
(d) the publication of specific guidelines would identify prosecution
priorities, as well as areas where the Prosecution might exercise restraint,
which may lead to an increase in offending in those specific areas.
The last solution is, of course, not very feasible either since the PAP has systematically
inculcated a sense of vulnerability in Singaporeans and sought to establish its right to
rule on that basisas a protector of racial and religious harmony. To repeal a law like
this would be politically costly, or so it thinks. So far, the PAP has largely succeeded in
instilling an acute sense of anxiety, making the electorate believe that things will
quickly unravel if it is no longer there to keep the peace between entrenched racial and
religious groups. It has perpetuated the myth that there are latent feelings of racial and
religious animosity that will erupt the moment the lid is taken off, and it has cast itself
as the irreplaceable big daddy.
But as Ive pointed out before, Singapore isnt as vulnerable as the Government makes
it out to be. Rule by anxiety can also be counterproductive because it contributes to the
very problem of instability the Government is attempting to solve and blinds it to its
own prejudices. The Amos Yee case demonstrates how the PAP has fallen prey to its

own narrative of vulnerability and has led it to pass a law without debate. The end
result is a law that doesnt serve its stated purpose, is redundant, cannot be
consistently applied and is liable to be abused. A review is badly needed, both of the
law and the way these laws are made.
Posted by Thavam