In recent years, various people have been jailed and/or fined for insulting Islam.
We cannot have one standard for Islam and one for Christianity.
It is completely irrelevant whether Christians feel offended or not; this is about treating religions equally.
Because of wider implications of the sensitivities of Muslims, and especially because of the region we live in, we cannot have people making offensive remarks about Islam like in Paris. But if we take this stance with Islam, then so should we with Buddhism (another major religion in our region) and with all other religions including Christianity, whose adherents preach forgiveness. However, we cannot be treating religions according to whether their adherents get offended, or forgive the perpetrators. Law doesn't work like that.
Therefore we need to get our views on the Amos Yee case right if we wanna grow as a nation.
Much as we are upset about his offensive remarks against Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, these are not criminal.
On the other hand, freedom of speech extremists must not be allowed to push their agenda: we are not a society that should tolerate the incitement of religious hate, regardless of what religions are involved.
Calvin Cheng
We cannot have one standard for Islam and one for Christianity.
It is completely irrelevant whether Christians feel offended or not; this is about treating religions equally.
Because of wider implications of the sensitivities of Muslims, and especially because of the region we live in, we cannot have people making offensive remarks about Islam like in Paris. But if we take this stance with Islam, then so should we with Buddhism (another major religion in our region) and with all other religions including Christianity, whose adherents preach forgiveness. However, we cannot be treating religions according to whether their adherents get offended, or forgive the perpetrators. Law doesn't work like that.
Therefore we need to get our views on the Amos Yee case right if we wanna grow as a nation.
Much as we are upset about his offensive remarks against Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, these are not criminal.
On the other hand, freedom of speech extremists must not be allowed to push their agenda: we are not a society that should tolerate the incitement of religious hate, regardless of what religions are involved.
Calvin Cheng