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12 U. Pa. Asian L. Rev. 186 (2016-2017)
Amos Yee, Free Speech, and Maintaining Religious Harmony in Singapore

handle is hein.journals/etalr12 and id is 194 raw text is: AMOS YEE, FREE SPEECH, AND MAINTAINING RELIGIOUS HARMONY IN SINGAPORE George Baylon Radics* & Yee Suan Poon** This Article examines the tension between freedom of speech and laws restricting the defamation of religion, using the case study of Singapore and the Amos Yee case. In 2015, four days after the death of revered former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, Amos Yee, a sixteen-year-old blogger, posted a video called Lee Kuan Yew is finally dead! and, one day later, an image on his blog entitled Lee Kuan Yew buttfucking Margaret Thatcher. As part of Yee's eight-minute-long video, Yee spent forty seconds criticizing Lee by drawing an unfavorable analogy between Lee and Jesus. As a result, Yee was charged under section 298 of the Penal Code, the law prohibiting the uttering of words with the deliberate intent to wound the religious or racial feelings. While international news highlighted Yee's prosecution as a blatant attempt to silence criticism of the former Prime Minister, the courts held steadfast in their belief that Yee's words were hurtful towards Christians, and that offending the religious sentiments of any community would not be tolerated in Singapore. This Article will review the facts of the case, the history of the law, and its application. It will also attempt to situate the law in the larger Defamation of Religions resolution debate in the United Nations from 1999 2010 and review legal restrictions on free speech in the United States and Europe. I. IN TRO D U CTION ....................................................................... 187 II. INTERNATIONAL DEBATES ON THE DEFAMATION OF R EL IG IO N ............................................................................... 19 1 * Dr Radics is a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. J.D., University of Washington School of Law; B.A., University of California, Los Angeles; Ph.D., National University of Singapore. ** Yee Suan Poon graduated with a B.Soc.Sci (Hons) degree in Sociology from the National University of Singapore in 2016. This Article was presented at the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana (U.S.) from June 2 to 5, 2016. The authors would like to thank Leong Wai-Teng, Michael Barr, David Engel, Muhammad Arafat Bin Mohammad, Leon Moosavi, Justine Guichard, Anisur Rahman, and Jingdi Zhou for their comments on earlier drafts.