Singapore court sentences two ethnic Chinese to prison for making racist remarks online

Singapore court Friday sentenced two ethnic Chinese to prison for posting racist remarks about ethnic Malays on the Internet, in what is considered a landmark case underscoring the government's attempts to crack down on racial intolerance and regulate online expression.

Animal shelter worker Benjamin Koh Song Huat, 27, was jailed for one month while Nicholas Lim Yew, an unemployed 25-year-old, was sentenced to a nominal prison term of one day and fined the maximum 5,000 Singapore dollars (US$2,969; Ђ2,461) for racist comments against the minority Malay community.

"Racial and religious hostility feeds on itself," said Senior District Judge Richard Magnus in passing sentence.

"Young Singaporeans ... must realize that callous and reckless remarks on racial or religious subjects have the potential to cause social disorder, in whatever medium or forum they are expressed," he said.

Lim and Koh stood in the docks with their heads bowed as they pleaded guilty to charges of committing acts "which had seditious tendencies to promote feelings of ill-will and hostility between different races and classes," reports the AP. I.L.