Tag: Singaporean

Man Stole To Satisfy Fetish For Women’s Wallets, Jailed 3 Years

A serial thief with a fetish for women’s leather wallets, who has spent 17 years of his life behind bars, is back in jail for another three years for his latest stealing spree.

Low Ji Qing, 50, lost his appeal to the High Court on Wednesday to be given a lighter sentence for his most recent series of offences.

Low has been in and out of jail since 1986 for theft. He was spared a prison sentence twice in 2011 and given probation.

He was last jailed for 13 months in March 2013.

Shortly after he was released from prison, he stole a wallet and mobile phone from a woman’s bag in an unattended trolley at Giant hypermart in VivoCity.

He claimed that he took the items out of frustration over a dispute he had with the boss of the restaurant where he worked.

He was arrested and sent to the Institute of Mental Health (IMH), where he was diagnosed with fetishism, a sexual fixation on non-living objects – in his case, women’s wallets.

In August last year, while out on bail, he stole the wallet of a woman who had left her handbag in a trolley while shopping at the Ikea furniture store in Alexandra Road.

Low later placed the wallet back into the handbag but a passer-by who noticed him behaving suspiciously alerted the victim.

A week later, he struck at the same store, taking a phone from the handbag of a woman while her attention was diverted. He was admitted to the IMH again.

The prosecution said there was no causal link between his theft in the last two cases and his condition of fetishism.

Low pleaded guilty to three theft charges in December and was given a three-year jail sentence.

On Wednesday, he appealed for a shorter jail term, arguing that his condition had improved and that he had returned one of the wallets.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

April 17, 2015
Lorry Crashed Into Police Car At Pasir Panjang Road Carpark

A lorry crashed into a police car that was entering a carpark on Pasir Panjang Road on Tuesday.

The impact caused the police vehicle to slam into an electronic gantry at the carpark.

The police said the incident happened at about 3.30pm. Two officers who were in the car suffered minor injuries. They were taken to Alexandra Hospital.

The lorry driver was unhurt. Investigations are ongoing.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

April 15, 2015
Couple Behind The Real Singapore Charged On 7 Counts Of Sedition Each

The couple behind socio-political website The Real Singapore – a 26-year-old Singaporean man and a 22-year-old Australian woman – were on Tuesday (Apr 14) each charged with seven counts of sedition.

Yang Kaiheng and Ai Takagi allegedly published seditious articles on the website between October 2013 and February 2015. One of these articles falsely claimed that an incident between police and some members of the public during a Thaipusam procession earlier this year had been sparked by a Filipino family’s complaint that the drums played during the procession upset their child.

Yang is Singaporean, while Ai Takagi is Australian.

According to the charge sheets, the particular articles have the “tendency to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different groups of people in Singapore, name, between ethnic Indians in Singapore and Philippine nationals in Singapore”.

The pair also face an eighth charge, this time under the Penal Code, for failing to produce documents to a police officer from the Criminal Investigation Department.

Under the Sedition Act, the duo are liable, on conviction for a first offence, to a fine of up to S$5,000 or to imprisonment for a term of up to three years, or to both. As for the charge under the Penal code, they are punishable with imprisonment of a maximum of one month, or a maximum fine of S$1,500, or both.

Court bail for each was set at S$20,000, and the case will be mentioned again on May 12.

Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

April 14, 2015
Police Report Lodged Against Unle Who Jumped On Car’s Bonnet

Pilot Adrian Choo was driving home along Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 on Wednesday afternoon when he noticed an elderly man waving at him.

“I thought he was most probably a jaywalker,” said Mr Choo, 44, who slowed his car to a stop for the man.

But instead of crossing the road, the man ran towards Mr Choo’s car and jumped on his bonnet.

Fearing it might be a ruse to cheat unsuspecting drivers out of money, Mr Choo submitted video footage of the bizarre incident, captured on his dashboard camera, to citizen journalism website Stomp.

In the 20-second video, the old man, dressed in a loose white T-shirt and shorts, is seen hurling himself at the stationary vehicle. He is then seen removing his spectacles, rolling off the car, and walking away.

Mr Choo said he did not get out to confront the man partly because he did not wish to hold up traffic. “I also wasn’t sure if he was mentally unstable,” said Mr Choo, who was in the car with his 11-year-old daughter.

He added that he believes the man left because he spotted the dashboard camera.

“It was quite shocking. What if I didn’t have a camera? It would just be my word against his,” said Mr Choo, adding that he made a police report on the matter yesterday.

“I hope other drivers will be aware of him. Judging from his demeanour, it seems like he’s practised.”

Yesterday, residents in the vicinity identified the man as an 80-year-old resident of Ang Mo Kio.

“He cycles around the area. He’s quite strong,” Mr Jack Tan, 54, told The Straits Times.

Mr Lim Kay Chuan, 52, who is unemployed, said: “He usually sits at the void deck of Block 203, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3. Sometimes he plays mahjong there.”

When contacted, a police spokesman confirmed that a report had been lodged, and said they were looking into the matter.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

April 10, 2015
Zulfikar Shariff: What is a Malay?

Seperkara yang selalu dibahaskan ialah concept Melayu/ Islam.

Ada yang menyatukan keduany (Melayu itu Islam), ada yang beranggapan keduanya tidak sama (Melayu itu bangsa dan Islam agama), ada yang merasakan menyatukan kedua perkara tidak wajar dan wajib dipisahkan.

Insha Allah post ini akan memberi sedikit pencerahan tentang bangsa Melayu. Ada yang lebih ariff dan insha Allah I hope they can expand on the issue further.

Bangsa Melayu tidak boleh difahamkan seperti suku. Suku ialah identiti melalui genetic. It is based on ancestry.

Bangsa Melayu is not simply genetic but characteristic. Orang Melayu ialah seseorang yang diterima masyarakat Melayu sebagai Melayu.

Penerimaan ini berdasarkan penggunaan bahasa Melayu, mengikut adat resam Melayu dan beragama Islam.

That is how the Malays have identified themselves the last several hundred years.

Not by ancestry, but through Islam, culture and language.

The problem arose when the British arrived in the region. They could not understand how a race is based on characteristics that are seen to be dynamic. It also went against their understanding of race and ethnicity to accept the possibility that someone can “Masuk Melayu”. Since their understanding of themselves is based on ancestry, the British could not accept the nature of the Malay bangsa.

For example, Abdullah Munsyi was ethnically an Indian. But he spoke for the Malays and was accepted by the Malays as a Malay.

Such identification was normal for the Malays. But the British rejected it. It was only late in the 19th century that Malayness began to be taken as ethnicity with Islam being held as distinct.

As Diana Carroll argued, “while it may be correct to say that Abdullah would not have appeared to be Malay by mid-twentieth century standards, this cannot be assumed to be the case when Abdullah was growing up.”

Rather than accept simply how the British and the west defined Malayness, we should return to our own definition.

Not every Muslim is a Malay. But every Malay is a Muslim.

Diana Carroll. Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society
Vol. 72, No. 2 (277), JOHN M. GULLICK FESTSCHRIFT (1999), pp. 91-129

Source: Zulfikar Shariff

April 10, 2015