Yang Kaiheng, one of the editors of socio-political blog The Real Singapore (TRS), had an application to Singapore for Australia on Monday (May 4) approved, subject to conditions.
The conditions include an additional bail sum of S$40,000 and the submission of his complete travel itinerary. His permission to leave Singapore is valid from Monday until May 17.
Yang agreed to the conditions and posted bail on Monday afternoon.
In a bail review hearing on Monday morning, District Judge Eddy Tham heard that the 26-year-old’s father recently suffered a stroke in Australia.
Deputy Public Prosecutor G Kannan argued that while the prosecution was sympathetic to Yang’s situation, he remains a flight risk, with the authorities relying on his cooperation to return should he be allowed to leave Singapore’s jurisdiction. DPP Kannan noted that Yang’s cooperation has been found wanting, having not complied with orders requiring information related to the investigations.
The DPP said that a demonstration in good faith of compliance on Yang’s part with regards to the information being sought by the MDA would take this issue out of the flight risk equation.
Yang and Takagi each face seven counts of sedition charges. They allegedly published seditious articles on the website between October 2013 and February this year, including one that falsely claimed that an incident between police and some members of the public during a Thaipusam procession.
The pair were also slapped with an eighth charge under the Penal Code for failing to produce documents to a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Department.
Bail for Yang had previously been set at S$20,000.
On Sunday, the Media Development Authority ordered TRS administrators to stop posting articles and disable access to its website and social media accounts.
Source: www.channelnewsasia.com
