Teen blogger Amos Yee Pang Sang was on Monday (Jul 6) sentenced to four weeks' jail, backdated to Jun 2. Yee was found guilty of two charges - one for making offensive or wounding remarks against Christianity and another for circulating obscene imagery. A third charge, for the teen blogger's statements on the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew in a YouTube video, was withdrawn.
The 16-year-old intends to appeal against the conviction, said his lawyer Alfred Dodwell. "The journey here has been long and arduous, ridden with lots of obstacles and hurdles. We have somehow gotten here," said Mr Dodwell. "We have confirmed with our client that he wants to appeal against the conviction." The teen has also agreed to go for counselling, according to Mr Dodwell. "He is happy to cooperate now," he said. Yee has been remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for the past two weeks to assess his suitability for a mandatory treatment order, after a doctor said that Yee may have autism-spectrum disorder. Mr Dodwell on Sunday night confirmed reports that the blogger was in hospital.
Meanwhile, a protest in support of Amos was also held in Hong Kong yesterday. Fifty people from different civic and political groups gathered outside the commercial building in Admiralty where the Singapore Consulate-General is located. They demanded the immediate release of Yee. They also burnt effigies and masks of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Among the speakers at the protest was Singapore opposition politician Goh Meng Seng, who lives in Hong Kong and wrote about the event on his Facebook page.
Mr Goh left the National Solidarity Party, of which he was secretary-general, in 2011, and applied to register a new political party, the People's Power Party, in May this year. "I don't like Amos because he's rude in the Singapore context. But I have to defend his rights," Mr Goh was quoted as saying in the South China Morning Post. Some 500 people turned up at a Hong Lim Park event yesterday to rally for Amos Yee's release.
