Release Singaporean teen blogger Amos Yee, Hong Kong student group Scholarism urges
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 30 June, 2015, 10:21am
UPDATED : Tuesday, 30 June, 2015, 8:01pm
Lai Ying-kit [email protected]
Amos Yee leaves the State Courts with his mother after his trial in Singapore on May 12, 2015. Amos Yee has been remanded in a mental institution. Photo: Reuters
Hong Kong student group Scholarism is urging Singapore to release teen blogger Amos Yee, who was last month convicted for posting a controversial video attacking late prime minister Lee Kuan Yew.
The group condemned the Singaporean government for remanding Yee, 16, in a mental health institution after his conviction. It said this showed the Lion City was disrespectful of children’s rights and dissenting voices.
“The Singaporean government detained a teenager because of one video. This only shows Singapore, a so-called modernised society, fails to allow dissidents and different voices,” it said.
Scholarism and the student unions of the University of Hong Kong and Lingnan University stage a petition outside the Singaporean consulate in Admiralty to call for Amos Yee's immediate release on Tuesday. Photo: Nora Tam
The group said that under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, young people’s freedom of speech should be protected from government infringements.
Scholarism and the student unions of the University of Hong Kong and Lingnan University will stage a petition outside the Singaporean consulate in Admiralty on Tuesday afternoon to call for Yee’s immediate release.
Yee was earlier found guilty of two criminal charges.
He was convicted of having hurt religious feelings in the video posted after Lee’s death on March 23. He likened Singapore’s first prime minister to Jesus in an expletive-laden monologue.
He was also found guilty of circulating obscene content – a graphic cartoon involving Lee and late British prime minister Margaret Thatcher.
