A third one charged with sedition
Just read this in Straits Times Interactive under "latest news", with the "full story" promised to follow in Saturday's paper. The plantiff, a seventeen-year-old private school student Gan Huai Shi, faces no less than seven charges under the same Sedition Act under which Nicholas Lim Yew and Benjamin Koh Song Huat were charged. What is known so far is that he "made four inflammatory comments about Malays and Muslims on the Internet within days of starting his blog". And in one entry, he "allegedly made it clear that he was "extremely racist"." Gan was released on bail of $15,000 and is due back in court on Sept 20. update: hypothesis disconfirmed (thanks: Xenoboy).
Prediction: there will be continued talk about local weather in the Singapore blogosphere.
update: Mr. Wang has picked up the story as well--his comment: "Racists, be afraid. Be very afraid." So has the forum over at hardwarezone.com. Elsewhere, CNA has a more abbreviated version of the same story out.
more details from ST in addition to the bits already posted above:
Elsewhere, Mollymeek returns from the dead to comment about l'Affair Sedition.
about that name: Caleb points out that Gan Huai Shi sounds like "do bad things" in Mandarin, prompting lzydata to wonder if this is an alias. I think this is quite possible, though it would be nice if there is independent confirmation. Notice that there is no photo of this one on ST either; and considering his age (17, compared to 25 and 27 for the other two) and the nature of the charge, there may well be a good reason to hold back on his true identity.
there is now a wiki on the Sedition Act, with a section on "Cases in 2005".
even more details now available at TODAYonline (hat tip: Singab'pore):
Over at Mr. Wang's a back and forth over the rights and wrongs of the case is taking place in the comments section; while Singapore Classics continues with a long post on the same subject, but from the other court. The reasoning is complicated, so I shan't rehearse their respective arguments here (you are encouraged to read them for yourselves). In any case, I am quite torn...
I have always subscribed to the doctrine that, in order for even the most liberal of democracies to function, it is necessary for there to be legally enforced boundaries to people's freedom of action.
But that's action. On the other hand, it is tyranny to think that a society can or should legislate on what can be thought. The point is not that thought does not lead to action, or that action does not exemplify thought; rather, the point is that any attempt to do so is inevitably little more than men pretending to be God--pretending to be able to see to the hearts of men when their thoughts have not yet become action. The bone of contention, however, is the middle of speech: neither thought simply, nor action yet.
On the one hand, to argue that--for example--racist speech ought not to be proscribed because doing so will not attack the root of the evil that is racist thought, misses the whole point. One might as well say the same for racist action. The point is not whether the constraints on action or speech will make people morally better, more virtuous--the law cannot do such things. Rather, the point is whether such constraints are necessary to prevent harm.
On the other hand, if we are going to be talking about harm, then it had better be the prospect of real harm that should justify any curtailing of the freedom of speech. It can't be just a matter of people subjectively feeling insulted, but, in the words of the Act itself, "a tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore"--and beyond that, the prospect of inter-racial hostility and conflict.
Can any form of speech do that? Certainly; nothing rules out the possibility especially given our history. Has this bar been met in the specific cases of the three charged? This is possible but I don't know. I should wait and see.
the discussion continues at The Void Deck. And since they mentioned it, I should link this for those who are interested in J.S. Mill and his "harm principle". The doctrine is spelt out in his essay, On Liberty.
Prediction: there will be continued talk about local weather in the Singapore blogosphere.
update: Mr. Wang has picked up the story as well--his comment: "Racists, be afraid. Be very afraid." So has the forum over at hardwarezone.com. Elsewhere, CNA has a more abbreviated version of the same story out.
more details from ST in addition to the bits already posted above:
From May to July 16, he is accused of making racist comments once a month on his blog, spouting his hatred for the Malay community. In one posting, he also allegedly wrote of his violent tendencies in an entry he described as having 'explicit and candid content'. He allegedly wrote how much he wanted to 'assassinate some important person with a sniper rifle'.Xenoboy has comments. According to him, this is the owner of the notorious "Holocaust" blog at one point featured in Tomorrow.
Elsewhere, Mollymeek returns from the dead to comment about l'Affair Sedition.
about that name: Caleb points out that Gan Huai Shi sounds like "do bad things" in Mandarin, prompting lzydata to wonder if this is an alias. I think this is quite possible, though it would be nice if there is independent confirmation. Notice that there is no photo of this one on ST either; and considering his age (17, compared to 25 and 27 for the other two) and the nature of the charge, there may well be a good reason to hold back on his true identity.
there is now a wiki on the Sedition Act, with a section on "Cases in 2005".
even more details now available at TODAYonline (hat tip: Singab'pore):
The target of his ire were Malays and Muslims. In some astonishing rants, he compared them to "rodents". He claimed he wanted to blow up Muslim holy sites and wrote that "the Malays must be eliminated before it is too late". He made insulting remarks about the community, most of which are not fit for publication. In his first entry Gan claimed that he was "extremely racist".I hate to say this but the worst of my fears are being confirmed.
Over at Mr. Wang's a back and forth over the rights and wrongs of the case is taking place in the comments section; while Singapore Classics continues with a long post on the same subject, but from the other court. The reasoning is complicated, so I shan't rehearse their respective arguments here (you are encouraged to read them for yourselves). In any case, I am quite torn...
I have always subscribed to the doctrine that, in order for even the most liberal of democracies to function, it is necessary for there to be legally enforced boundaries to people's freedom of action.
But that's action. On the other hand, it is tyranny to think that a society can or should legislate on what can be thought. The point is not that thought does not lead to action, or that action does not exemplify thought; rather, the point is that any attempt to do so is inevitably little more than men pretending to be God--pretending to be able to see to the hearts of men when their thoughts have not yet become action. The bone of contention, however, is the middle of speech: neither thought simply, nor action yet.
On the one hand, to argue that--for example--racist speech ought not to be proscribed because doing so will not attack the root of the evil that is racist thought, misses the whole point. One might as well say the same for racist action. The point is not whether the constraints on action or speech will make people morally better, more virtuous--the law cannot do such things. Rather, the point is whether such constraints are necessary to prevent harm.
On the other hand, if we are going to be talking about harm, then it had better be the prospect of real harm that should justify any curtailing of the freedom of speech. It can't be just a matter of people subjectively feeling insulted, but, in the words of the Act itself, "a tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore"--and beyond that, the prospect of inter-racial hostility and conflict.
Can any form of speech do that? Certainly; nothing rules out the possibility especially given our history. Has this bar been met in the specific cases of the three charged? This is possible but I don't know. I should wait and see.
the discussion continues at The Void Deck. And since they mentioned it, I should link this for those who are interested in J.S. Mill and his "harm principle". The doctrine is spelt out in his essay, On Liberty.
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