Fresh police report lodged against teen in online rant

Fresh police report lodged against teen in online rant

A police report has been filed against teenager Amos Yee for allegedly infringing a court order by reproducing contents of his online rant about Christianity and an offensive video about the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

The complaint was filed yesterday by retired policeman Lionel de Souza, 72, in his capacity as assistant secretary of the People's Action Party's Hougang branch.

Police confirmed yesterday that a report was filed.

Amos, 16, was charged on March 31 with attacking Christianity, transmitting an obscene image, and making an online video that insulted Mr Lee.

He was out on bail of $20,000.

The video, called Lee Kuan Yew Is Finally Dead!, was uploaded on March 27, four days after Mr Lee's death.

More than 20 police reports were lodged against Amos and as of yesterday, the video had been viewed over 880,000 times.

When he was charged, prosecutors asked that additional conditions be imposed.

[[nid:184533]]

These were that Amos undertake not to post, upload or otherwise distribute any comment or content online while his case was ongoing. He agreed.

In the police report, Mr de Souza said Amos could be in contempt of court because on Tuesday, he posted "what the court prohibited him to do".

This was when he went online in a blogpost headlined "Donate To Help Amos Yee" to raise $30,000 for legal fees. The blogpost included links to the offensive videos and postings.

In the post he said: "I've already saved up a considerable amount of money by insisting that I'd only have lawyers who are able to represent me, pro bono. But unfortunately, there is still the inevitable cost of court fees, bail money all the nitty-gritties that makes a trial notoriously expensive, lawyers excessively rich and something that the common folk would never wish to touch with a 8-foot pole."

Amos could not be contacted by phone for comment yesterday.

This is not the first such fund-raising effort. Blogger Roy Ngerng, who was found last November to have defamed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, turned to crowd-funding last May to help pay his legal fees.

On Wednesday, Mr Ngerng said on Facebook that Amos was being "politically prosecuted" and directed viewers to Amos' crowd-funding blogpost.

A pre-trial conference on the the charges against Amos is scheduled for today.

rachelay@sph.com.sg


This article was first published on April 17, 2015.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.

This website is best viewed using the latest versions of web browsers.