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Tag: Yang Kaiheng

  • TRS Editor Yang Kaiheng Allowed To Return To Australia To Visit Ailing Father

    TRS Editor Yang Kaiheng Allowed To Return To Australia To Visit Ailing Father

    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

  • The Real Singapore Taken Down After MDA Suspends Editors’ Licence

    The Real Singapore Taken Down After MDA Suspends Editors’ Licence

    Socio-political website The Real Singapore (TRS) was shut down by its editors yesterday, after the Media Development Authority (MDA) suspended their licence to operate the site and ordered them to take it offline.

    Explaining this unprecedented step, the MDA said yesterday that TRS had published material that is “objectionable on the grounds of public interest, public order and national harmony”.

    Noting that at least two out of TRS’ three known editors are foreigners, the agency added that the site “sought to incite anti-foreigner sentiments in Singapore” and to “make profit at the expense of Singapore’s public interest and national harmony”.

    The move comes a month after two of the editors behind TRS – Singaporean student Yang Kaiheng, 26, and his Australian girlfriend Ai Takagi, 22 – were charged with sedition for publishing articles that allegedly promoted ill will and hostility between different races or classes here.

    A third editor, Melanie Tan, who is believed to be Malaysian, was not included in the charges.

    At a media briefing yesterday, MDA said TRS “deliberately fabricated articles and falsely attributed them to innocent parties”, in what the agency believes was an attempt to raise the site’s traffic – and thus its advertising dollars.

    It also noted that TRS inserted falsehoods in articles so as to make them more inflammatory.

    Previous police investigations found that TRS articles targeted Filipinos and Chinese and Indian nationals, among others.

    Assistant Professor Liew Kai Khiun, who teaches communications at the Nanyang Technological University, said MDA’s unusual move should serve as a warning about “how vulnerable Singapore can be to external forces through the porous cyberspace”.

    “It must have been alarming for the authorities and Singaporeans to discover the extent of foreign involvement in a website that has been accused of amplifying social tensions in Singapore,” he told The Straits Times.

    Yesterday, MDA ordered Yang and Takagi not to post any new articles with immediate effect, and to take down the TRS website and all its online channels – including its social media pages – by 8pm. They did so an hour before the deadline.

    If they had not done so, they could have been subject to a maximum fine of $200,000 and/or jailed for up to three years.

    MDA also instructed Yang and Takagi not to resume online operations under any other name.

    They have been given until May 11 to provide information on TRS’ operations, such as its finances, and to submit arguments as to why their licence to operate the site should not be cancelled.

    Failure to provide the information could result in a fine of as much as $5,000 each and/or jail time of up to a year.

    If their licence is cancelled, Yang and Takagi will not be allowed to operate the website permanently. MDA will also be able to take other actions, including blocking access to the site.

    But they can appeal against the suspension and potential cancellation of the licence by writing to Communications and Information Minister Yaacob Ibrahim.

    Even as the site was taken down last night, several links were circulated online of what appeared to be clones of the site. An MDA spokesman said the agency is looking into the matter.

    Former Nominated MP Calvin Cheng, who has campaigned for TRS to be shut down, said MDA’s move is not an affront to freedom of speech.

    “This is not how freedom of speech is practised in Singapore, nor is it the type that most Singaporeans value,” he said.

     

    Source: www.straitstimes.com

  • Couple Behind The Real Singapore Charged On 7 Counts Of Sedition Each

    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