A timeline of Amos Yee’s latest sedition case that led to him being investigated by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and his experience with the police arrest.
In response to earlier media queries, the police said that Amos had been arrested for offences under Sections 174 and 298 of the Penal Code.
The police spokesman said, “The offence under section 298 of the Penal Code relates to online remarks made in November 2015 that contained offensive and disparaging remarks against various religious communities,”
The timeline of Amos’ arrest for the offences
17 November 2015: Amos publishes a post on his blog https://amosyee.wordpress.com addressing Calvin Cheng’s comments on killing the children of terrorist members.
In the post, Amos wrote “Oh yes and xxxx Islam, and Allah doesn’t exist, but say you see a prick from ISIS who wants to kill or has even killed before, don’t think that’s a scenario where it’s alright to kill him”.
This statement prompted several police reports from the public.
12 December 2015: The SPF issues a statement affirming that Amos Yee is under investigation for his comments on Islam.
13 December 2015: Amos leaves Singapore. He faces no difficulty leaving Singapore. Amos heads first to Hong Kong, then to Melbourne and Taiwan. During his time abroad he posts several pictures to his Facebook account, one of which shows him holding up a middle finger to the Quran.
21 April 2016: Amos returns to Singapore. Once again, he is not stopped at immigration.
3 May 2016: Police show up at Amos’s home in Ang Mo Kio and inform him that he is legally obliged to show up for investigation. On the same day, Amos uploads a video in which he secretly records the police at his door.
9 May 2016: Amos attempts to leave the country. He is stopped by immigration and has his passport confiscated.
10 May 2015: Amos is arrested while going to buy lunch from a flat in Jurong. 3 police officers were allegedly waiting at the void deck downstairs. Once spotted, they immediately went up and handcuffed him. In the house, the 3 police officers called for assistance. 6 more officers then showed up. The police then began to search the house, finally confiscating a slew of electrical devices.
Confiscated items include:
- 5 phones
- 7 laptops (1 of which is was Amos’ mother’s working laptop that had her prepared tuition notes inside and it significantly disrupted her work)
- 1 desktop computer
- 6 cameras
- 3 tripods
Amos estimates that the total worth of the items is around SGD$16,000.
According to Amos, when the police decided to send him back to the police station, plastic shackles were used to secure Amos’ arms, legs and around his body. Amos said that the shackles were very tight and expressed discomfort but the officers refused to loosen them and quoted the officers saying, ‘(until) we are back at the station’. Once the shackles were loosened, there were noticeable bruises on both arms and legs.
Amos was then brought to Jurong Police station and was questioned by ISP Doreen Chong. He said that there were 57 questions asked by the ISP during this interview.
Amos recounted that he was asked questions like:
- “what was your intention to post the picture of you showing the middle finger on the Quran?”
- “did you know that your words would offend people?”
- “what do you mean by halal-snorters?”
Amos has stated that he did not answer any of the police’s questions. He noted that another male officer then threatened him saying, ‘if you don’t answer these questions, we can infer that to a different meaning and it will be to your disadvantage in court’.
Amos was subsequently released on $5,000 bail posted by his mother.
There has been no further action by the police. Amos’ passport is currently impounded by the police and the police is still carrying out their investigation on the matter.
TOC understands that Amos has uploaded a video titled “Refuting Islam With Their Own Quran” on 19 May 2016. The video is taken off of Youtube within an hour (possibly for violating Youtube community standards). Amos then re-uploads the video on Vimeo.