An Australian woman whose Web site published made-up stories about foreigners that prosecutors said incited racial hatred was yesterday jailed in Singapore after falling foul of colonial-era sedition laws.
Ai Takagi was jailed for 10 months, the stiffest sentence ever imposed for the offense in strictly governed Singapore, which clamps down hard on any activity seen as promoting racial and class hatred.
Takagi was the Australia-based editor and owner of “The Real Singapore,” which enjoyed huge popularity, but was shut down after she and her Singaporean husband were arrested while visiting the city-state last year.
Prosecutors said Takagi, 23, posted fabricated stories to generate hundreds of thousands of US dollars in online advertising revenue for her site, which also had a Facebook page with a large following.
‘VITRIOL AND HATRED’
District Judge Salina Ishak said a strong sentence was needed because Takagi was inciting “vitriol and hatred” against all foreigners in Singapore.
Takagi, who is eight weeks pregnant with her first child, read an apology in court before the sentence was handed down.
She was given a month to settle her personal affairs before serving her prison sentence.
“Before this case started, I was not fully aware of the level of sensitivity needed when dealing with topics related to racial and religious issues in Singapore,” she said.
“I sincerely apologize for the harm I have caused through my actions,” said the Japanese-Australian law student, who expressed hope that she would someday be allowed to settle permanently in Singapore.
Singapore’s sedition laws make it an offense to promote hostility between different races or classes in the multiracial society, which is mainly ethnic Chinese with large Malay and Indian minorities. However, critics say sedition laws, dating back to British colonial rule, can be used to clamp down on free speech.
About 40 percent of the labor-starved city-state’s 5.5 million people are foreigners, many of them from China, India and the Philippines.
CRACKDOWN
Singapore has also cracked down on foreigners for sedition.
In September last year, Filipino nurse Ello Ed Mundsel Bello, 29, was jailed for four months after insulting Singaporeans online and calling on his compatriots to take over the city-state.
Takagi had pleaded guilty to four counts of sedition lodged against her and her Singaporean husband, Yang Kaiheng, 27.
The cases included a fabricated article, which said that a Filipino family instigated a fracas at a Hindu festival, and another alleging that a Chinese woman made her grandson urinate into a bottle inside a metro train.
However, Yang is fighting the charges and has pleaded not guilty.
They were also charged with withholding from police information on the Web site’s advertising revenue, which was estimated at S$473,000 (US$342,000) over a 17-month period.
Each sedition charge carries a penalty of up to three years in jail and a maximum fine of S$5,000, or both.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not