Alex Au Waipan, 61, who runs the Yawning Bread blog is most likely to face a fine, jail time or both for criticizing the court’s handling of a challenge to the law criminalizing sex between men
A court in Singapore has convicted a gay rights activist and blogger on a contempt of court charge for being critical of the judiciary in the handling of a case pertaining to the city-state’s anti-gay law.
Alex Au Waipan, 61, who runs the Yawning Bread blog is most likely to face a fine, jail time or both following the Jan. 22 decision from Singapore’s High Court, international media reported.
Au was convicted over a 2013 blog piece he wrote suggesting that judges had manipulated court dates on a constitutional challenge to a law criminalizing sex between men.
Au's article suggested that the "as the Chief Justice wanted to hear one case, Supreme Court deliberately delayed the determination of another case so that the outcome of the first case would likely have an influence on the outcome of the second case," it was reported.
His article “poses or would pose a real risk of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice in Singapore,” Justice Belinda Ang Saw Fan wrote in the decision, according to the AFP news service.
The court ruled that another post written by Au which said that the courts were biased against gay people did not violate the law.
"We are deeply troubled by Alex Au Waipang's conviction," said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "It is this verdict, not Au's writing, that undermines public confidence in the judiciary."
Freedom House, a US-based rights group also said that the Singapore judiciary systematically returns verdicts in the government’s favor and that journalists and other commentators who raise questions regarding judicial impartiality are vulnerable to contempt charges.
Au is openly gay. “I have known I was gay since, what? my early teens…I have never been “confused” nor ridden with guilt and conflict,” he says in his blog Yawning Bread blog where articles either are about gay issues, or at least tangentially touch on same-sex relations.
In October, the highest court in Singapore upheld the country’s colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex when it rejected cases brought by three men, who said the law which penalizes sex between men infringes their human rights under Singapore’s constitution.
Singapore courts are consistent in throwing out anti-gay discrimination lawsuits citing the Section 377A law in Singapore’s penal code. The British colonial-era law criminalizes same-sex relations and carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
Gay rights activists have been advocating to get the law repealed but with little success.
A court in Singapore has convicted a gay rights activist and blogger on a contempt of court charge for being critical of the judiciary in the handling of a case pertaining to the city-state’s anti-gay law.
Alex Au Waipan, 61, who runs the Yawning Bread blog is most likely to face a fine, jail time or both following the Jan. 22 decision from Singapore’s High Court, international media reported.
Au was convicted over a 2013 blog piece he wrote suggesting that judges had manipulated court dates on a constitutional challenge to a law criminalizing sex between men.
Au's article suggested that the "as the Chief Justice wanted to hear one case, Supreme Court deliberately delayed the determination of another case so that the outcome of the first case would likely have an influence on the outcome of the second case," it was reported.
His article “poses or would pose a real risk of undermining public confidence in the administration of justice in Singapore,” Justice Belinda Ang Saw Fan wrote in the decision, according to the AFP news service.
The court ruled that another post written by Au which said that the courts were biased against gay people did not violate the law.
"We are deeply troubled by Alex Au Waipang's conviction," said the Committee to Protect Journalists’ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. "It is this verdict, not Au's writing, that undermines public confidence in the judiciary."
Freedom House, a US-based rights group also said that the Singapore judiciary systematically returns verdicts in the government’s favor and that journalists and other commentators who raise questions regarding judicial impartiality are vulnerable to contempt charges.
Au is openly gay. “I have known I was gay since, what? my early teens…I have never been “confused” nor ridden with guilt and conflict,” he says in his blog Yawning Bread blog where articles either are about gay issues, or at least tangentially touch on same-sex relations.
In October, the highest court in Singapore upheld the country’s colonial-era law criminalizing gay sex when it rejected cases brought by three men, who said the law which penalizes sex between men infringes their human rights under Singapore’s constitution.
Singapore courts are consistent in throwing out anti-gay discrimination lawsuits citing the Section 377A law in Singapore’s penal code. The British colonial-era law criminalizes same-sex relations and carries a maximum penalty of two years in jail.
Gay rights activists have been advocating to get the law repealed but with little success.
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Reader's Comments
In latter years as times and the world evolved the British openly admitted that the law was used only to steal property, was a terrible law, and consequently they eventually removed it from their law books.
Unfortunately, it remained the law with other British colonial outposts they had and the time and remained on the law books even after the countries became independent.
Singapore it entrenched with ideology that is hundreds of years behind the rest of the world. People should boycott and do everything possible to stop the flow of commerce and send a clear message to the Singaporean government: Get with the future or lose your quality of economic prosperity.
Therefore, in my opinion - Mr. Alex Au Waipan should sue the government for barring his right of "Freedom of Speech".
We beg to differ on this observation: "ESPECIALLY AS SO MANY PEOPLE THINK HE(current SG PM) IS IN THE CLOSET" .......if this theory were true and nothing could be further from the truth like that of the Black Kid shot dead in Ferguson, Missouri, US, and while under the Obama Presidency, and many other incidences around the same land of the free? He couldn't do much, lest there be accusations from other vigilant opposition and ill-intentioned groups.
The 'prejudiced inferior subject now-in-superior office' in question are consciously or sub-consciously, even in more binds of forced justification and/or dilemma to prove a ' comfortable distance' from their peers and vigorous 'non-bias' open policy to all have statistically shown times and again that, the effect of the added discrimination are most likely and more forcefully-applied.
You need look no further for other examples:
Chinese spy network and "running dogs" of the invading Imperial Japanese Army often harmed their peers much worse than these invading devils. Do we need to mention others like the Indian police's and militia's excessive forces exacted upon other Indians while under the service of the Imperialist British of the Colonial Era?
Mahatma Gandhi, although a very charming and respectable idol of mine, was trying too hard at times to appease the departing Muslims and subsequently departed Pakistani of this justification policies and tendencies, at the expenses of his Hindu friends, because he is Mahatma and thus supposedly 'colour-blind'.
Etc, etc, etc.....
Change comes over time. Sudden step changes are generally bad for all concerned, especially when/if they get changed back.
It's so much nicer living in the UK where homosexuality isn't instantly equated to left wing politics anymore
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