Racist blog writer gets community service

A 17-year-old who was charged with making racist remarks against Malays and Muslims in his blog has escaped jail but will spend time interacting with the very community he condemned.

The student, who last month pleaded guilty to two charges under the Sedition Act, was sentenced to two years of supervised probation with several conditions, according to local media reports.

The conditions include counselling sessions to correct his resentment towards Malays, which is said to stem from an incident relating to the death of his brother, psychiatric evaluation and follow-up to address his brother's death, and 180 hours of community service. In addition, his parents were made to post a S$10,000 (US$5,901) bond.

The judge recommended the youth be given opportunities for "positive interaction with the Malay community", such as having a Malay probation officer, and serving part of the 180 hours of community work at Malay or Muslim welfare organisations.

The court had earlier heard the teenager harboured ill-feeling towards Malays since the age of seven due to an incident that resulted in his brother's death. He and his mother had tried without success to persuade a Malay couple to let them board a taxi first, to rush his then one-month-old brother who was having breathing difficulties to hospital. The baby died before he could receive medical attention.

On 7 October, a 27-year-old blogger was sentenced to one month in jail for inflammatory remarks against Muslims in his blog.