Couple behind The Real Singapore charged with sedition
The duo behind The Real Singapore, Ai Takagi (right) and Yang Kaiheng (left) arriving at court on Apr 14, 2015. Photo: Wee Teck Hian
SINGAPORE - About two months after they were arrested, a couple behind website The Real Singapore were today (April 14) charged with sedition for publishing content that could incite hostility between Singaporeans and foreigners.
In addition to the sedition charges, the couple also face one charge each under the Penal Code for not producing accounts and bank statements for mobile and online advertisements to the police.
Among the seven charges they each face under the Sedition Act, Singaporean Yang Kaiheng, 26, and Australian Ai Takagi, 22, were accused of falsely asserting in an article and Facebook post on Feb 4 that a Filipino family had caused an incident between the police and Thaipusam participants, by complaining about the playing of musical instruments during a Thaipusam procession. The other charges related to articles published between Oct 2013 and last year that could incite ill-will and hostility between various groups in Singapore, according to court documents.
An article in May last year, for instance, contained assertions about female China nationals that could promote ill-will between Singaporeans and China nationals.
The following month, the website published an article that asserted that Filipinos were giving preferential treatment to people from their own country at the expense of Singaporeans.
And an Oct 2013 post claimed that a woman who euthanised an adopted puppy worked for a healthcare company that hired mostly foreigners. The post had an editor’s note allegedly penned by Takagi, but was falsely attributed to someone called “Farhan”, according to court documents.
The editor’s note described the website’s stance on foreign labour in Singapore and its aim to instil fear in some companies.
Yang and Takagi are represented by lawyers Choo Zheng Xi and Raj Mannar. They were each granted S$20,000 bail and their pre-trial conference is scheduled on May 12.
For each sedition charge, they could be fined up to S$5,000 and jailed up to three years. For not producing accounts and bank statements to the police, they could be fined up to S$1,500 and jailed for up to a month.
A third person linked to the website, a Malaysian who calls herself Melanie Tan, is not in Singapore.
Earlier this month, Filipino Ello Ed Mundsel Bello was charged with two counts of sedition and three counts of providing false information to the police during investigation. The former nurse who was dismissed from Tan Tock Seng Hospital had made offensive online comments about Singaporeans.
