Singaporean teenager given four-week imprisonment for online offensive remarks

Updated: 2015-07-06 17:25

(Xinhua)

  Comments() Print Mail Large Medium  Small 分享按钮 0

SINGAPORE, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Singaporean teenager blogger Amos Yee Pang Sang was sentenced to four weeks in jail on Monday for making offensive remarks online.

As Amos Yee has spent more than 50 days in remand and his sentence was backdated, it meant he could walk free from the court.

Amos Yee's lawyer Alfred Dodwell said Yee would appeal against the conviction. It still remained as a question whether Yee's behavior was a crime or not, and Yee wanted to appeal to the High Court, the lawyer added.

The 16-year-old teenager, who was arrested in March, repeatedly breached bail conditions and refused to speak to a probation officer.

Yee was found guilty of two charges, one for making offensive remarks against Christianity and another for circulating obscene imagery online. The third charge for his insulting statements on founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew in a YouTube video was dropped.

Yee has been remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for the past two weeks to assess his suitability for a mandatory treatment after a doctor said the teenager might have autism-spectrum disorder.

Anyone who is found guilty of making remarks hurting the feelings of a religious group can be jailed for up to three years, or fined or both under the law. Anyone convicted of electronically transmitting an obscene image can be jailed up to three months or fined, or both.