In the former, I discussed why the Sedition Act was used to charge Nicholas Lim and Benjamin Koh for promoting "feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races or classes of the population of Singapore," -- the words in the Act.

Since I have not seen the actual words used, nor even the context in Koh's blog or the doggiesite forum, I cannot give any opinion whether the prosecution of Lim and Koh is justified or not. In any case, the matter is currently sub judice, and it is not appropriate to comment.

As for whether I agreed with the law as it stood, I can see now, on reading my article again, that I took a somewhat ambiguous position on it. I said,

The third reaction, that the law and the action being taken against Lim and Koh is a violation of free speech, is more debatable. The problem is that unkind words span a range. At one end, there are views that can be quite critical, but still founded on evidence or reason. Others may not agree, in fact, some might even take offence to being so criticised, but if the words constitute fair comment, in that the speaker is able to substantiate his views to some degree, and makes a contribution to public debate, it would be unreasonable to restrain such speech.

At the other end, the speech has a completely different quality. Such speech tends to be unsupported by the facts, oversimplified or overgeneralised. It tends to be reliant on words that belittle the target group or make them the butt of jokes, or it has a vehement, repetitive, hectoring and intimidating quality.

Far from representing considered opinion, such speech is more akin to issuing threats or rousing other people to join in a verbal lynching. Although the action is primarily in the form of words spoken or written, this is still action more than opinion and therefore the civilised protection of diverse opinion and peaceful persuasion of fellow citizens, which is the intent behind the right to free speech, cannot be extended to exempt such action from regulation.

Finally, last month, I had the opportunity [1] to see the words that Koh and Lim wrote that led to them being charged. They were essentially long rants, not particularly coherent, full of expletives and name-calling. Of course, as is common for our times, there were the usual associations made between Islam and terrorism.

There was one funny thing though: as far as I could see, both rants were not against Malays, but against Muslims, though that's an academic point. In Singapore, almost all Malays are Muslims, and most Muslims are Malays, so the association is inescapable.

* * * * *

From Wikipedia, below is a description of the 12 cartoons published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten last September. Some of them (e.g. the first and the fifth cartoons) merely challenged the Islamic injunction against depicting any religious figure [2] lest it lead to idolatry. Others went further, making the association between Islam, as represented by the figure of Mohammad, and terrorism or the oppression of women. The sixth cartoon made a point about censorship. The last two caricatured the publicity bonus for the children's book author, Kare Bluitgen, rather than saying anything about Mohammad.

1. The Islamic star and crescent merged with the face of Muhammad; his right eye is the star, the crescent surrounds his beard and face.

2. Muhammad with a bomb in his turban, with a lit fuse and the Islamic creed written on the bomb. This drawing is considered the most controversial of the twelve.

3. Muhammad standing in a gentle pose with a halo in the shape of a crescent moon. The middle part of the crescent is obscured, revealing only the edges which resemble horns.

4. A schematic stick drawing of five almost identical figures. Each of them resembles a headscarf seen from the side and has a Star of David and a crescent where the face should be. A poem on oppression of women is attached to the cartoon... which could be translated as "Prophet, you crazy bloke! Keeping women under yoke!"

5. Muhammad as a simple wanderer, in the desert, at sunset. There is a donkey in the background.

6. A nervous caricaturist, shakily drawing Muhammad while looking over his shoulder.

7. Two angry Muslims charge forward with sabres and bombs, while their apparent leader, probably Muhammad, addresses them with... In English, his words are "Relax, friends, at the end of the day, it's just a drawing by an infidel South Jutlander", referring to a drawing in his hand, whose frontispiece is invisible to us.

8. A 7th grade Arab-looking boy in front of a blackboard, pointing to the Farsi chalkings, which translate into "The editorial team of Jyllands-Posten is a bunch of reactionary provocateurs". The boy is labelled "Mohammed, Valby school, 7.A", implying that this is a second-generation immigrant to Denmark rather than the founder of Islam. On his shirt is written "FREM" and then in a new line "-TIDEN". Fremtiden means the future, but Frem (forward) is also the name of a Valby football team whose uniforms resemble the boy's shirt. Valby is a district of Copenhagen known for having a concentrated population of immigrants.

9. Another drawing shows Muhammad prepared for battle, with a short sabre in one hand and a black bar censoring his eyes. He seems to be smiling. He is flanked by two women in niqaabs, having only their wide open eyes visible.

10. Muhammad standing on a cloud, greeting dead suicide bombers with... translated in English "Stop, stop, we have run out of virgins!", an allusion to the promised reward to martyrs.

11. Another shows journalist Kåre Bluitgen, wearing a turban with the proverbial orange dropping into it, with the inscription "Publicity stunt". In his hand is a child's stick drawing of Muhammad. The proverb "an orange in the turban" is a Danish expression meaning "a stroke of luck" here, the added publicity for the book.

12. A police line-up of seven people wearing turbans, with the witness saying ("Hm... I can't really recognise him". Not all people in the line-up are immediately identifiable. They are (1) A generic Hippie, (2) politician Pia Kjærsgaard, (3) possibly Jesus, (4) possibly Buddha, (5) possibly Muhammad, (6) generic Indian Guru, and (7) journalist Kåre Bluitgen, carrying a sign saying "Kåre's public relations, call and get an offer".

 
Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_cartoons

As I mentioned in my earlier article, the newspaper framed their decision to the publish the 12 cartoons with these introductory words:

The modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims. They demand a special position, insisting on special consideration of their own religious feelings. It is incompatible with contemporary democracy and freedom of speech, where you must be ready to put up with insults, mockery and ridicule. It is certainly not always attractive and nice to look at, and it does not mean that religious feelings should be made fun of at any price, but that is of minor importance in the present context.... we are on our way to a slippery slope where no-one can tell how the self-censorship will end. That is why Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten has invited members of the Danish editorial cartoonists union to draw Muhammad as they see him...

Thus, it should be clear that however offensive some of the 12 cartoons were, the point of the whole exercise was about the "slippery slope" and "self-censorship".

The cartoons thus serve a relevant public interest which was absent in Koh and Lim's rants. In that grey area that stretches from critical commentary that causes offence to incitement to harm, the Danish cartoons are closer to the critical commentary end while Koh and Lim's rants were closer to the incitement end.

I don't remember reading anything from Koh and Lim's entries that directly called upon anyone to injure Muslims, so one should be careful not to characterise what they wrote as incitement to violence or physical harm. Having said that,  an argument can be made that the foul language they used demonstrably made others think they could likewise post additional rantings, and together these had the potential of creating an extremely oppressive climate for those who were the target of their verbal assaults -- Muslims in Singapore.

No doubt, one can say the same of the Danish cartoons: that some of them, by belittling Islam, or making the (disputed) connection between the religion on the one hand, and terrorism, censorship or the oppression of women on the other, likewise brought Islam into disrepute and encouraged others to think likewise. The end result may be to reinforce prejudice and discrimination against Muslims.

Yet there is a difference. The difference is that the Danish cartoons also served an important public purpose -- that of raising important subjects for discussion. I think this makes them defensible where Koh and Lim's rants were not.

* * * * *

In hindsight, now that I have seen Koh and Lim's online rants, should they have been prosecuted?

I'm a little divided, but a good part of me thinks not.

However, let me make this clear: what they wrote were a form of hate speech. Their words had that repetitive, hectoring, and intimidating quality that characterises hate speech rather than dialogue. The vacuity of their speech should most certainly have been exposed and their sentiments strongly rebutted. The deleterious effects of such rantings, including some equally rabid responses, could have been made clear to a wider public, and if I had known about them while it was occurring, I would have spoken up against them. But Koh and Lim's words do not come within my personal definition of incitement -- which is a call to action to harm and injure others -- which now also seems to be the UK Parliament's definition of incitement (see below).

I understand from previous reports that, in fact, opposition to their words was already forthcoming in the online forums where they made their original postings, so there is reason to believe that private citizens could have taken care of the problem without having to invoke the law.

And do I think the Sedition Act is bad law? Yes, I do. The wording is far too broad.

The UK government recently moved a bill through Parliament, called the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. The original wording of the proposed law was quite broad, but Parliament narrowed it down on concerns (against the wishes of Tony Blair's government) that it covered belief as well.

Countering criticism of the bill, Home Office Minister Paul Goggins tried to convince Members of Parliament that moves to combat religious hatred would not damage freedom of speech and only those who were intending to "stir up hatred" would be caught by the government's plans. Evidently, however, legislators thought that even "stir up" was too vague. [3]

In the final version as approved by the MPs, only "threatening words" are to be banned by the law, not those which are only abusive or insulting. The new law also requires that the offence has to be intentional; at the same time, it specifies that proselytising, discussion, criticism, insult, abuse and ridicule of religion, belief or religious practice cannot be an offence [4].

The philosophy behind this was succinctly captured in an editorial in the Economist magazine, though not on the subject of the new UK law, but about the Danish cartoons (issue 11-17 Feb 2006):

... the fewer constraints that are placed on free speech the better. Limits designed to protect people (from libel and murder, for example) are easier to justify than those that aim in some way to control thinking (such as laws on blasphemy, obscenity and Holocaust-denial)

Further on,

Freedom of expression, including the freedom to poke fun at religion, is not just a hard-won human right but the defining freedom of liberal societies. When such a freedom comes under threat of violence, the job of governments should be to defend it without reservation. To their credit, many politicians in continental Europe have done just that.

The magazine also said,

Shouldn't the right to free speech be tempered by a sense of responsibility? Of course. Most people do not go about insulting their fellows just because they have a right to. The media ought to show special sensitivity when the things they say might stir up hatred or hurt the feelings of vulnerable minorities. But sensitivity cannot always ordain silence.

Which is to say that publishing the cartoons to make a point about freedom of speech is justifiable, there being a larger principle at stake. Between outlawing blasphemy (and the censorship such would demand) and the defence of freedom, choose freedom. 

On the other hand, it would be outrageously irresponsible for any media to reprint what Koh and Lim wrote, except in excerpts to make the point how egregiously mischievous and hurtful it is. Why shouldn't we reprint what they wrote to make the same point about freedom? Technically, we should be able to, but they would be very poor examples. Their words were simply full of hate and venom; they didn't represent any loftier principle. To celebrate their words celebrate nothing of importance. "Special sensitivity... to vulnerable minorities", in the Economist's words, should take precedence, whereas to publish or republish the Danish cartoons, while contentious, had a larger principle involved, for they were pointing towards how a minority was demanding special treatment.

* * * * *

Singapore's leaders (and the Straits Times) have been saying how freedom should be balanced with responsibility. In itself, that is not wrong, but as is typical for Singapore's shallow political discourse, these words are never examined more critically. There seems to be the assumption that if anyone subscribes to this principle then he must agree that tough censorship laws are justified, that is, that "responsibility" should be enforced by law.

I think we need to be careful about this. Faced with hate speech in its most extreme form, e.g. issuing calls to assassinate someone because of what he represents, laws are indeed needed, but in other circumstances, "responsibility" should only be a social obligation, not a legislated one. We ought to try our best to be a society that encourages responsibility in individuals and through peer education, rather than one that thinks that since "responsibility" is the job of the government and the law, then ordinary people have no need to be responsible until big brother steps in to tell us otherwise.

At the same time, I also accept that we need to be realistic. We should be able to make a distinction between principle and practicality. I am sympathetic to the argument that politically, Singapore society has not yet matured. People are still tribal in their outlook and irrational about identity, seeing how, for example, we don't even speak a common language. At this point in our progress, we cannot lift the lid too quickly, thus there may have to be less leeway in Singapore than in the West, perhaps for a generation more.

But couching it in these terms is quite different from saying the principle of freedom has to be subordinated to anyone else who takes offence, as in this report from the Straits Times:

'We are a multiracial society, we must respect one another's religions, we must not deliberately insult or desecrate what others hold sacred because if we want to live peacefully together, then we must live and let live, there must be tolerance, there must be mutual respect,' [PM Lee Hsien Loong] said.

Further on,